The impossible measure points to the paradoxes that exist around the notion of labor, and the value of labor. How to measure its value in a situation in which life and work have become one and the same thing?

 

More than any other generation before, we are very conscious of the brutal tactics of the capitalist system in which we live. Yet we are obsessed with work and with being productive. We constantly complain about the system, yet we keep advertising our lives on social media and feeding the algorithms. We are trapped in a loop in which we simultaneously denounce and endorse the system. And it doesn’t seem like there is an easy way out. 

 

Nonetheless, even if the answer to the central question of this exhibition (how can we measure the value of our work?) is an impossible one, it is still a question worth asking over and over again. 

 

The works of seven artists: Barbara Foulkes (AR), Anne-Laure Franchette (FR), Patricio Gil Flood (AR), Adrian Melis (CU), Dominique Sievers (CH), Nora Schiedt (CH), Igor Vidor (BR) and musicians Dalia Donadio (CH) and Marc Méan will pose this question in many different ways and from many different perspectives:

 

How does the value of work change, depending on the geography and the economic system?

Which kind of work is more valuable? 

How do the tools we use for work determine the value of it? To what extent have we merged with them? 

What is the value of our free time? Of our bodies?

Do we actually have time off (work), or is our work as consumers to enjoy and have fun?

Why is giving birth referred to as “labor”, but the care work that women perform is not recognised or remunerated by any economic system? (Even though it sustains and allows the functioning of the very system) 

What is the value of the knowledge that we inherit or that we share? And is there a measure for the value of legacy?

How can we measure the value of our own labor (immaterial, affective or physical) if we don’t even know who we are really working for?

If we think of value as not being monetary, are we endorsing or denouncing capitalism? (Think of a student who works for free in exchange of experience and skills)

Can we think of ways of not doing/not working? Or of not having to measure the value? 

​

Many open questions and —possibly— one single clue: capitalism is a system that benefits from the masses, but wants people to remain separated and in competition against each other. Maybe the impossible measure is not only the value of our individual work, but the value of what can be achieved when we come together?

​

Curated by Adriana Domínguez 

​

About the works 

​

​

Trailer of "cómo siendo peces podemos ver el agua" 

video by Barbara Foulkes, 2022, 38min

*The video will be projected during the finissage of the exhibition, 25.02.2023, 7pm

​

​

As part of her constant research on the body, the artist developed a choreography with a construction excavator, creating a symbiosis between the two performers and the machine. Who moves whom? To what extent have we merged with the tools that we use for work?