Pain(t)ing By Numbers (with Steve Allbutt and Helen Kaplinsky). Ilkley Moor Festival, August 2005

Black Dogs were invited to provide entertainment for the annual festival on Ilkley Moor. Audience participation and the relationship between work and play were the central themes. Black Dogs ran a three-part interactive event-cum-workshop during the festival, and we were indebted to artist Steve Allbutt for doing more than his fair share of the work.

First, members of the public were invited to destroy an image of a call centre in the manner of a coconut shy. Having broken down the clay tiles of the image, the remains were then ground into paint and used to colour in a vast paint-by-numbers image of a ferris wheel.