SHEFFIELD.- The fifth Art Sheffield festival of contemporary art will include new and significant work from international and Sheffield-based artists, with a thought-provoking programme of exhibitions, debates and events that will take place at venues across the city, from 4 October–14 December 2013.

Under the title ‘Zero Hours’, which questions how time and work are valued and how societies are organised around economic systems, the Art Sheffield curated exhibition takes as its starting point the seminal work ‘Wirtschaftswerte (Economic Values)’ 1980 by Joseph Beuys, to explore and celebrate notions of exchange, labour, economy and collaboration. Highlights of the contemporary art programme include new commissions from artists Edgar Arceneaux and Mikhail Karikis and the UK premiere of ‘Tomorrow’s Parties’ by internationally acclaimed, Sheffield-based Forced Entertainment.

Specially commissioned for Art Sheffield, from Los Angeles-based artist Edgar Arceneaux, will be a new video and sound piece entitled ‘A Time to Break Silence’ at CADS Snow Lane. Filmed in an abandoned Detroit church, with a stunning new soundtrack by techno-pioneers Underground Resistance, the film re-enacts the pivotal speech ‘A Time to Break Silence’ by civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King. ‘Children of Unquiet’, a new work from Greek film-maker Mikhail Karikis - the fourth and final part of his ‘Work Quartet’ series - will be shown at Site Gallery.

Renowned innovators in the world of theatre and performance Forced Entertainment, will present the UK premiere of their latest work ‘Tomorrow’s Parties’ on 3 and 4 October at the Crucible Studio Theatre. The humorous and poignant show explores various hypothetical concepts of years to come, from those based on science fiction’s utopian fantasies to political nightmares of the future.

Sheffield’s manufacturing history provides the backdrop and context to the work of several artists. At Furnace Park, a former foundry, will be London and Zagreb-based artist Ben Cain in residency at the site. His sculptural installation will reference the production line of this former industrial hub. S1 Artspace is host to a new site-specific sculpture by international visual artist Elena Bajo and also showing there, the legacy of industry has been captured in Ryan Mosley’s ghostly paintings, and Katja Strunz’s sculptures made from recycled industrial materials.

A new commission from artists’ collective The Grantchester Pottery will result in a series of publicly sited wall-based pieces, inspired by early 20th Century craft traditions.

Graves Gallery will show Joseph Beuys’s ‘Wirtschaftswerte (Economic Values)’ 1980 alongside ‘The Days of the Commune’ by Zoe Beloff which references the first political occupation, the Paris Commune, in 1871. Highlighting social and economic inequalities, Beloff’s installation documents performances by actors involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2012, of Brecht’s play of the same name, filmed across several parks in New York.

Site Gallery will also be the venue for an exhibition documenting Garth Evans’ fellowship at the British Steel Corporation. The exhibition documents a ground-breaking early placement of an artist inside an industrial company when sculptor Garth Evans was introduced to British Steel in 1969 by Artist Placement Group.

At Bloc Projects, artist and film-maker Oliver Ressler presents ‘The Plundering’, a newly co-commissioned 40-minute documentary shot in Tbilisi, which highlights the challenging economic impact on Georgian citizens of the aggressive privatisation of state property since the Rose Revolution of 2003.

The theme of ‘Zero Hours’ is traced by Swiss artist Urs Fischer at Site Gallery, Fischer’s ‘Money Bowl’ will invite audiences to leave small coins gathered on trips abroad, as a reminder of the transitory nature of the economy. In their installation ‘The Need for Money’, on show at Sheffield Institute of Arts, duo David Riff & Dmitry Gutov reflect on communication, and the often amusing mistakes made in translation when talking socially about a political subject, in this case as they read ‘Das Kapital’ in their reading group at the Karl Marx School of English, Moscow.

Art Sheffield has been funded by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, Sheffield City Council, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield Town Trust and the Henry Moore Foundation. Curated by Kirstie Hamilton [Head of Exhibition Programming, Museums Sheffield], Louise Hutchinson [Artistic Director, S1 Artspace], Tim Machin [Gallery Manager, Sheffield Institute of Arts Gallery], Charlotte Morgan [Project Manager, BLOC Projects] and Laura Sillars [Artistic Director, Site Gallery]. Art Sheffield events will take place at Site Gallery, The Crucible Theatre, Graves Gallery, S1 Artspace, Bloc Projects, Sheffield Institute of Arts, Sheffield Hallam University and several temporary venues.

Alongside ‘Zero Hours’ will be Art Sheffield ‘Parallel Projects’, a series of independent events and exhibitions including on Saturday 16 November the Sheffield Print Fair at St. Mary’s Church and Community Centre, and the 4th Sheffield International Artists Book Prize, at Bank Street Arts; the largest prize of its kind, with an accompanying exhibition and events.