“A new job to unwork” Exhibition

Participant Inc.

[Image: Devin Kenny "Untitled (butane tags for Dead Prez)" (2011) Ash on cortega tile. Photo: Peggy Chiang and Max Guy.]

This event has ended.

Goldman Club (Emanuel Alborg and Aliza Shvarts), Tehching Hsieh, Devin Kenny, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Wes Larios, Fred Lonidier, Dylan Mira, Karin Schneider, Kandis Williams of Cassandra Press

Curated by Andrew Kachel and Clara López Menéndez

As an activity that is perhaps as widely shared as it is varied in character, what potentials are latent in work as a ground for reconsidering entrenched social, political, and economic relations?

A new job to unwork at is a multidisciplinary project that studies the many social, material, and economic processes that we understand as “work,” and the ways in which this classification of activity operates as a legitimating discourse that privileges certain subjects and life choices. We draw on the concept of unwork (coined by Valerie Solanas in SCUM Manifesto) as a wry subversion of work, focusing on practices that re-imagine work’s intended flows and ends, often short-circuiting the power relations inherent in labor relations, distilling their often destructive potentials into a politics of commoning and care. The project is the continuation of ongoing research that examines the ideological consequences of work in shaping our identities and experiences of the world. The latest materialization of this research takes the shape of a series of public programs beginning in August and an exhibition opening on September 9.

All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS:

Aug 23
Punching Songs Together
6-9pm

A musical performance by Amelia Bande
With susan karabush, Neyza Honore, Jenno Snyder, and Tina Zavitzanos

not all questions have answers, but every doubt has at least a song we can make and sing together.
this collective musical experiment wants to hold a joyous space for lyrical loudness.
join us for a celebration of unknown melodic outcomes, hesitant vibrations and rhythmical fears.

Suggested donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Aug 26
Coop Fund
2-5pm

Coop Fund members will host two workshops that give a basic introduction to Coop Fund, detailing how it was started, and how it operates now. Refreshments will be provided.

All are welcome to attend. If possible, please RSVP in advance to: coopfundcooperative@gmail.com.

Aug 29
JoAnn Elam, Everyday People (Rough Cut), 1978-90, 22 min
Kevin Jerome Everson, Company Line, 2009, 30 min
Curated by Karl McCool
7-9pm

A screening of two films, which explore the connections between everyday life, work, and community. With her work-in-progress, Everyday People, left unfinished at her death, JoAnn Elam documents her experiences as a postal worker, as well as those of her coworkers, proposing an “avant-garde film with a working class … ideology.” In Company Line, Kevin Jerome Everson similarly combines documentary and experimental film practices, as city employees and former residents narrate accounts of the “Company Line,” one of the first predominately Black neighborhoods in Mansfield, Ohio, located close to an old steel mill.

Aug 31
Kathi Weeks and Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.)
7-9pm

A conversation between Kathi Weeks, Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University and author of The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics and Postwork Imaginaries, and Lise Soskolne, artist and core organizer of Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.), a New York-based activist organization.