Work After Work. Hannah Toticki Anbert

About

The exhibition is on display in the gallery’s windows.

Within the framework of Existing Otherwise | Anders Existieren – For a New Politics of the Senses

On display from June 4, 2021

The exhibition Work After Work by Hannah Toticki Anbert, curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen, opens on the 4th of June 2021 in the large windows of Galerie Wedding. Artist Hannah Toticki Anbert addresses the current cultures’ celebration of efficiency, productivity and growth. Especially, she focuses on how the body lacks possibilities of decoupling. In a constant stream of information, updates and online availability the limits between work and non-work, as well as the boundary between the body and technology, have become blurred.      

“Work After Work” opens up a space for essential questions. The title alludes to two  of them: What do we do after work? Is there any time at all outside of working hours?

Hannah Toticki Anbert shows costumes and accessories in the windows of Galerie Wedding that reflect these (missing) boundaries. Touch Screen Protection Rings are rings in silver and gold designed to be placed on the fingertip of the index finger and the thumb. The rings hereby block the small part of the body that normally interacts with digital devices through touch screens. The rings function both as a physical obstacle, and as a symbol of presence. Smartphone Protection Glasses also insert a bodily obstacle: The glasses block out the part of the field of view, often occupied when using our smartphone. With the possibility of constantly  being online, it takes discipline to create the necessary undisciplined space of decoupling for the body. In her series of Sleep Uniforms  Anbert comments on how we discipline our body to work, to such a degree that it might take discipline not to work.

The exhibition forms a direct commentary on the theme of Existing Otherwise and the reality of the Job Center Berlin-Wedding at the Rathausvorplatz next to the gallery. The artist also shows two videos with rewritten karaoke song lyrics reflecting on neoliberal working conditions and uses humour to showcase the shape of today’s working worlds. Hannah Toticki Anbert is deeply interested in how work structures time and community in everyday life and society, and how the brightness of a screen replaces the darkness of the night. She is concerned with the rhythm of day and night destroyed by the glowing screen, and with the lost sense of space and time.

Nowadays, not only work but also the social distancing measures  overwhelm our nervous system. The movement research Longing for Common Closeness materialises the internalised measures of social distancing: The costumes of performers make the invisible distance visible, playing haptically with the commandment to keep a distance from fellow human beings. Passers-by on Müllerstraße and the Rathausplatz can witness the Performance on the afternoon of 4 June.