Curation of exhibition at the Herbert Read Gallery, UCA Canterbury.
Inefficiency can be understood as an effort without reward; as the negative result of a system designed to produce a benefit, to be profitable. In relation to present conditions of labour, the dialectic of efficiency/inefficiency is at the core of new working paradigms. From life-hackers who propose efficient uses of technology to minimise the time spent at work, to the vindication of sleep and its power to resist capital's constant demand of attention, and from the rise of the artist's job -self-motivated, flexible, instable- as exemplary, to the reliance of many creative industries on the exploitation of unpaid work (internships), labour is today intimately connected to debates around (in)efficiency. Taking this panorama, the project 'Despite Efficiency: Labour' aspires to create a (working) space where these ideas can be played out in different formats and shapes, independently of their utility.
'Despite Efficiency: Labour' consists of two phases. The first one involves a guest architecture and design studio collaborating with students to transform the Herbert Read Gallery into a stage for (in)efficient work. Once built, and over a 3-week period, the transformed gallery will host a number of live performances, videos and other time-based projects presented by a group of international artists interested in situations and models of unprofitable, futile or ineffective work.
Exhibition design by BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design students, UCA + Aberrant Architecture, London.
Video works by Marilou Lemmens and Richard Ibghy, Terry Perk and Ed Oliver, Kleines Postfordistisches Drama, Greta Alfaro and L'œil du Cyclone.
