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

 

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 understood as “work,” and the ways in which this classification of human activity operates as a legitimating discourse that privileges certain subjects and life choices. 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 investigation takes the shape of a series of public programs (August) and an exhibition (September) at PARTICIPANT. In this iteration, we draw on the concept of unwork 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.

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

 

PROGRAMS:

Aug 23, 6-9pm

Punching Songs Together


A musical performance by Amelia Bande 

with susan karabush, Neyza Honore, Jenno Snyder, and Tina Zavitsanos

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. 2-5pm
Coop Fund


Coop Fund members host the first of 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, 7-9pm
JoAnn Elam, Everyday People (Rough Cut), 1978-90, 22 min

Kevin Jerome Everson, Company Line, 2009, 30 min


Curated by Karl McCool

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

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. 


 

Sep 16. 2-5pm
Coop Fund


Coop Fund members host the second of 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.

 

Sep 30, 7-9pm
Rafa Esparza, Tezcatlipoca Memoirs

Tezcatlipoca Memoirs is a collection of mixed media documentation of collaborative and performance work shared alongside a live Google Maps cruise through Ricardo Flores Magon, Durango; the hometown my parents Maria and Ramon Esparza migrated from to the USA in the early 70’s. Tezcatlipoka refers to the Nahuatl’s philosophy of ancestral memory; an embodiment of knowledge I engaged in my earliest performance work. Tezcatlipoca Memoirs is a time traveling machine I’ll use to expound on the matrix of labor I’ve invested my creative practice in over the last few years to build “community”, create access in cultural spaces, divert their resources, expand discourse, and re-member neglected yet important histories that form part of the audiences I’m strongly considering in my work.

 

Oct 12, 7-9pm
GLQ Journal launch

A reading to celebrate the publication of GLQ special issue The Queer Commons, co-edited by Gavin Butt and Nadja Millner-Larsen. Participants will share short excerpts from their contributions and the archives of queer commoning that their work draws upon. Material will be presented from the archives of Wages Due Lesbians and Black Women for Wages for Housework, Act Up's needle exchange initiatives, the queer organizing efforts at Istanbul's Gezi Park, the sexual undercommons of New York's legendary Clit Club. Featuring Ashon Crawley, Christina Hanhardt, Evren Savic, Arlen Austin, Clit Club contributors (including Julie Tolentino).

 

Oct 14, 7-9pm
Valerie Lynn Werder, A Notable Fiction

A Notable Fiction is a theatrical performance (and Antigone for the digital age) based on undercover Wikipedia editor Vera Syuzhet’s excursions into the site’s comments forums. The performance critically examines terms of legibility and notability in an online public sphere, asking: does the writing of history always amount to the writing of fiction?

A new job to unwork at is made possible with the support of Acción Cultural Española AC/E through the Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE) in the framework of the Mobility grants.