NYAB Event - Tiago Estrada “Back in 5”

Tiago Estrada “Back in 5”

Rooster Gallery

This event has ended.

“Time theft” is a common practice and each year corporations loose billions of dollars in these labor related disruptions that include the unjustified absence of the employee from his job without the employer’s consent. These very same corporations are looking to further extend control and manage it via the latest biometrics and other technological innovations.

The incentive for “time theft” makes sense when neoliberal capitalism is progressively making tabula rasa of labor laws, openly taking away the workers’ rights while gradually dismantling the welfare state. Time is an essential notion for the social contract, and when the time for some of the workers’ most basic needs is negotiated, determined or denied by the employing entity, this very same entity is denying the workers’ dignity.

Estrada’s incitement for “time theft” finds parallels with Henry David Thoreau’s “civil disobedience.” The works on display are therefore almost an illustrated manual of subversion, an invitation for workers to take breaks. The workers’ act of “time theft,” by simply leaving the premise on a daily basis for an undetermined amount of time while denying the customer/public access to its interior would be enough to disrupt the normal activity of these businesses and institutions.

“Back in 5” highlights counter-production values and is an incentive to everyone to depart from the commodified and financialized forms, even if just for a brief period of time.

Tiago Estrada (b.1967) is represented by Rooster Gallery, graduated in painting at the School of Fine Arts of Oporto, completed an MFA in Painting at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is represented at MoMA Archives, Drawing Center’s Digital Archive Online, Culturgest (Lisbon), Colecção ECO (Marvão).