Theatre and Arts

The penny is the lowest denomination coin in circulation, in fact today's one penny coin in worth less than its weight in copper and since 1992 pennies have been made of copper plated steel.

The space changes at the Newlyn Gallery

The current exhibition at the recently opened Newlyn Exhange Gallery in Penzance titled, 'The Abolition of Work' by collaborative artists David Cross and Matthew Cornford, explores our relationship with the currency by creating a visual spectacle containing over three quarters of a million penny coins.

The title of the show, taken by a pamphlet by the Anarchist Bob Black, asserts that 'work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world' and advocates the complete transformation of society towards a life based on play.

Following research in the Penzance area, the artists became interested in its history with copper; the copper mining alongside tin mining, Newlyn Copper and the Industrial Classes and the idea of coins being a form of exchange.

The floor becomes a sea of pennies

Cornwall's fragile economy, with many working for the minimum wage, raised ideas of the value of work and its worth.

These different strands lead them to propose one single extravagant gesture of covering the entire 214 metre floor of the gallery with almost 650,000 pennies.

Before the show opens on the 28th September, the artists and a team of technicians will be painstakingly arranging the coins side by side.

The exhibition is open to the public from 29th September - 18th November 2007