Every night without fail, crowds mass on either side of the border between Lahore, Pakistan, and Amritsar, India, to participate in the Wagah Border Ceremony, a meticulously choreographed ceremony which addresses the seventy-year-old rivalry between the two countries.

Complimentary Service playfully references and critiques nationalistic spectacles such as the Wagah Ceremony, the Olympic Games, or more pertinently perhaps to New Zealand, the Rugby World Cup. Events like these suspend attention from the actualities of humanity and reality, ignoring the individual and homogenising a nation under the banner of patriotism, and in the latter case, sporting pride. By framing a collective identity, the effect of the spectacle is escapist: distracting from, yet perpetuating, the insecurities of missing out or being labelled as 'different'.

During one iteration of the ceremony, a friend waved out the Pakistani crowd, who waved back. Other spectators on the Indian side, thinking they were the target of the wave, waved back, until the action gathered so much momentum that a mass of people on either side were waving at each other.

The absurdity and irony of Complimentary Service works in much the same way: The Welcoming Party’s campy, over-the-top appropriation of the spectacle celebrates the age old notion which Jacob Rajan describes as “opening the audience's mouths with laughter, then slipping something serious in”. What is fundamental to this work is enthusiasm and commitment - the commitment to the physicality and time involved in the endeavour, and the enthusiasm for what the service that is ultimately being provided. Through essentially trying to subvert the intent of the Wagah Ceremony spectacle, The Welcoming Party seeks to reclaim public space for the coming together of its inhabitants.