April 2007 to July 2008
a project
challenging and debating
social and political conceptions
of work
Curated and organized by curator Anja Raithel and artist Grete Aagaard who are based in the project and exhibition space rum46, DK
For all people work is a central factor in life; whether one is currently employed or not. The concept of work is a fluid phenomenon with a content that changes and is reinterpreted over time. Now the value-based concept of work can be seen as a hot topic in today’s Denmark and other Western countries. We are filled with stories where work is linked with empathy, flexibility, freedom, willingness for change and creative engagement. For some, work becomes a lifestyle. For others the capacious employment market is an empty phrase, which, rather paradoxically, might not be spacious enough for diversity in respect of qualifications, age, sex or ethnic origin, after all. It seems as if we have moved from a common “welfare” to individualized “workfare”, which can be perceived as a threat to the cohesive power of the social aspect of society.
For the majority in Western society, work is meaningful to the formation of our identity; yet in some low-income countries it is a question of survival. When Western countries transfer laborious work to low-income countries it can be seen as a positive increase in growth for both parties, whilst the negative consequences can result in greater inequality - the latter both in the country of dispatch where certain functions are rendered superfluous and with them certain workers, and in the recipient country where it can lead to the wearing-down and infringement of human rights. Therefore WORKafFAIR also aims to put questions of global problematics into perspective.
project and exhibition space