(non)work

On one hand, treating artistic practice as work is emancipatory as it allows us to take care of our energy, demand decent working conditions and support. On the other hand, in existing precarity, it leads to the situation where we are turned into self-managers, striving for self-sustainability, when everything we do is a work, we are 100% responsible for it. So maybe we should instead demand to be lazy, unproductive, and uncreative, without being stressed and guilty? We suggest to explore the notions of artistic work and non-work.

We want to challenge the traditional values around the ‘work-line’, to question colonisation by economic demands, imagine a less work-centered future and raise new sensibilities for idleness, unproductivity and alternative pleasures. The group (non)work focuses on cultural conditions of (non)work, emotional labor, critique of self-management and self-sustainability, political meanings of laziness and refusal to work, among other issues.

Contributors:

Nils Claesson, Olia Sosnovskaya, Nicolay Spesivtsev, Dzina Zhuk