18.12.16

Harun Farocki, Daniela Ortiz

Daniela Ortiz, Harun Farocki (Group Show): Afterwork, Ilham Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 18.12.16 > 16.04.17

Afterwork is a major group exhibition exploring issues of class, race, labour, and migration in the region and beyond, as well as their corresponding aesthetics and histories. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Para Site, a leading contemporary art centre in Hong Kong and one of the oldest and most active independent art institutions in Asia. Afterwork premiered in Para Site, Hong Kong in March 2016 and is curated by Freya Chou, Cosmin Costinas, Inti Guerrero, and Qinyi Lim.

Migrant domestic workers are Hong Kong’s largest minority group and one of the most visible components of the city's society. Migrant workers in construction, agriculture, and services, alongside domestic workers also represent a significant social group in Malaysia and other countries in the region. In most of these places, migrant workers’ legal and symbolic status are matters of constant negotiation, reflecting the many complexities behind the continuing nation building processes of our times.  The stories of migrant workers in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and elsewhere are crucial narratives that need to be told alongside the growing affluence of many of these societies in the past decades, together with the stories of struggle of what is considered the ‘local’ working class and of other historically disadvantaged groups, and on the backdrop of the different historical waves of migration that have shaped so much of our world.

Afterwork includes the work of artists of different practices, contexts, and generations. Several artists navigate directly the main thematic map of the exhibition; others chose a more personal approach, looking at the presence of domestic workers in households, the public sphere, and the artists' lives. Another group of artists create abstract and poetic landscapes that bring a different and necessary vocabulary in an exhibition that tries to address such a wide and contradictory array of topics and perspectives, from personal desires and dreams to historical processes.

+ info: http://www.ilhamgallery.com


Tags: exhibition


Daniela Ortiz, "97 Empleadas Domésticas", 2010.Publication: 13 x 20 cm