EX(MAS)CHANGE = ART + FUN. Commission for the Round Foundry Media Centre, Leeds, Dec 2004

Black Dogs designed an elaborate night-long party game based on gift exchange and outrageous costume. The audience were coaxed into engaging with one other through the promise of alcoholic rewards for completion of a task which took place throughout the party.

Text from review of the event in Leeds Guide:

"...locally based artist collective Black Dogs [were] commissioned to shift the focus away from the festive networking by engaging guests in a swarm of alternative, artistic party antics...created on much the same premise as the Round Foundry Media Centre itself, Black Dogs look to both initiate and pursue exciting and accessible artistic projects in the public realm and more formal, private spaces, and have become recognised for their broad expression and conception of what constitues art, and the various and challenging ways in which it can be presented.

With core member Lawrence Molloy masquerading as a Christmas tree while being wheeled around in the Black Dogs Sleigh, the troupe made sure that the party was suitably surreal from start to finish. At the beginning of the night each guest was handed a book of tickets bearing a festive symbol and was required to swap tickets with the other revelers until they'd collected the complete set of five symbols that could be exchanged for a coded piece of star.

"The item is essential for the next part of the evening. TERRIBLE MISFORTUNE will come to those not now in possession of it!" read the instructions. That misfortune being that you'd be unable to hunt down the other partygoers possessing the required pieces to complete your star, so wouldn't get to hang it on Lawrence in return for a bottle of Black Dogs Festive Spirit: a limited edition slice of the group's artwork."