SITUATION #40

The body of the young worker is at the very core of Werker 2 – A Spoken History of the Young Worker. This is a body that is disciplined in schools, educated at home, and put to work, often for a meager salary. A body that is also at work when it rests, rejuvenating the leisure industry with its youthful expression, consuming in order to stimulate additional injection of capital. Nevertheless, the body of the young worker is a body with political agency and the capacity to revolt. The documents, originating from different geographies and historical contexts and compiled by Marc Roig Blesa and Rogier Delfos, investigate the visual language of (self-)representation of the young worker to re-write a history of labour from the margins.

Werker 2 includes a new edition of Werker Magazine and an installation that calls for direct participation of the visitors to engage in this articulation of a counterhistory. Through an Image Act (description downloadable below), vistors have the chance to re-examine mechanisms of labour and their regulations of identity, class and gender by reenacting the images and texts compiled in the magazine. All Image Acts recorded in the exhibition space will be uploaded to an online archive and broadcast in public space.

Online archive with recordings from Werker 2: werkermagazine.org/imageact

Download the project and Image Act manual: bit.ly/1rVbmHH

A collaboration with Krakow Photomonth Festival. Werker 2 is part of Manifesta 11 Zürich Parallel Events (What People Do For Money: Some Joint Ventures).

Kindly supported by Mondriaan Fund and Manifesta 11.