LABOUR-FREE CULTURE

Finissage on Friday 13th of December from 18.00 onwards.

Artistic work entails potential to make visible alternative relationships to working. Nonetheless at the same time it is good to acknowledge the self-exploitation, structural unemployment and unorganised nature of the way of working and the fact that artists are also often driven to somewhat forced position as self-employed entrepreneur.

This exhibition deals with the concept of liberation from work, especially related to artistic activity and its possibility to reconfigure what work is. Presented in this exhibition will be works by Ronja Siitonen combining photographs and text and with a diary style note taking. The starting point for the work has been five month period of unemployment. Jaakko Pallasvuo’s works that are presented in the exhibition verge on the line between an artifact and an artwork. Also present in the exhibition will be elements from the project Eurooppa kieltäytyy työstä [Europe renounces from work] that consists of a documentary film by Ilona Raivio, photographs by Henri Salonen, and essays by Klaus Maunuksela and Pontus Purokuru. The publication of the project in Finnish has been published by Khaos and consists of interviews made by Lasse Poser, Ilona Raivio and Henri Salonen. The publication is also available to be purchased adjacent to the exhibition.

Part of the exhibition will be present in the premises of the association of Pori area’s unemployed [Porin Seudun Työttömät ry] at the address Mikonkatu 21 in Pori. The association has been established in 1992 and works actively to reduce unemployment as well as supports the livelihood and activity of the unemployed. The association organises courses and recreational activity to its members as well as runs a food bank and offers services such as dress rental, drift store, dressmakers’ shop, weaver’s shop and in autumn a fresh fruit juice press. The exhibition will be presented mainly in the drift store (Kirppari Mikis) that is open from 10-15 on weekdays.

LIBERATION FROM WORK

 Shorter Working Weeks – The Autonomy Institute:

 “To give a rough idea of the scale of the necessary reduction of work: to stay within a 2°C-compatible carbon budget, working hours in OECD countries would need to be as low as five hours per week.”

Liberation from work could mean that we will use our time only doing those things that we feel important and rewarding. Renouncing from doing anything else. At the same time also acknowledging that others have right to do so as well. It is the visibility of variety of actors on the field of work.

In artistic activity working for oneself has been perceived to be one of its benefits. A situation where an artist decides themselves what they will do might evade or at least lessen the impact of exploitative work – meaning the situation where working is first and foremost about making sellable products and utilising time dependent on its market value. The ability to work outside this set up is based on the idea that as an artist one is working mainly because of the perceived interest in participating in forming and defining what art is. Artist has sort of carved up some “autonomy” for their own work from the prevalent logic of work and its productive ethos, by renouncing primarily to sell their work and time as a product.

Artistic work is not the only line of work that being self-employed is seen as a form of self-exploitation. As based on constant adaptivity, marketing one’s own abilities as well as developing them for the use of market drains the sense of freedom, and manifests itself as a constant insecurity as well as internalised need to earn the possibility to make one’s own work in the first place. Critique for this market driven situation culminates in the fact that we don’t do all the things we do expecting to gain some form of – monetary or not – compensation, but often despite it. Artistic practice as work is based on constantly producing sort of a surplus that saturates the market, and at the same time bringing forward the role of various gatekeepers.

This exhibition deals with the culture of work and the issue of renouncing or liberating from it. Labour free culture can be acted upon only by participating on pushing the culture’s potential for change. We must be fiberated from work that is exploitative, as well as catastrophically damaging for the entire planet. Endless growth doesn’t exist. The culture of work has to come to its end, but perhaps the term ‘work’ can be saved from the excruciating growth-based capitalism. There is a need to renounce from unpleasant, unnecessary, and straightforwardly harmful work, that enslaves people, takes up all time, and limits the possibilities to act, destroying the humanity and the possibility value things without asking for compensation.

An art institution can offer support for this kind of change in the culture of work. Both in the form of examining the thematic of work as well as in practice supporting artistic work. Work has been seen as the way to address the societal role of being a human being. Therefore, it has a central role in formulating what we think we are, and also how we justify what we do.

Climate crisis and wildlife and biodiversity decline mean a permanent change in what exists. A lot will disappear and die so that it won’t provide vitality for anyone. Being an artist is about taking note of things that one cares about. It can also be work, and working towards something, but it can also be  about seeing differently, creating observations, or focusing on them. Despite of being constantly endangered, artistic work has its own resilience and stability as well as connectivity. The fact that artists often work despite not being supported, or seen as useful, tells something about the strength of wilfulness; how wanting to do something is a powerful thing.

This is the last exhibition of Poriginal gallery in this space that was constructed in a space that used to be an old salt storage. Poriginal has been located on this premises at the riverbank of the city of Pori from the year 1984 onwards. From 2025 onwards keeping the name Poriginal gallery activity will relocate inside the museum space located nearby. At the same time Poriginal will change its operational principles and start to offer a fee for the exhibiting artists. When Poriginal gallery started, and up until the year 2024, Poriginal has functioned at the same mode that many galleries in Finland, charging a fee from the artists to exhibit on the space. This will now come to its due end. The Pori Art Museum will still have an open call to exhibit in Poriginal to gain a wide variety of proposals for exhibitions and having thus possibility to provide versatility to the exhibitions held in the museum, allowing for alternative and different approaches to art making as well as activating participation on timely discussions. This last exhibition that will be seen in the inaugural Poriginal space is focused on highlighting one task of an art institution, like art museum, has – to provide understanding of what artistic work entails.

Curator: Miina Hujala