July 14, 2023
Opening: Friday, July 14 at 6:00 pm
The opening will be accompanied by a DJ set by hajnowisko and Patryk Wancerz
Duration: 14–16.07.2023
curator: Martyna Stołpiec
Guided tours: July 15 and 16 (Sat., Sun.) at 4:00 pm
Tour with Polish Sign Language translator—Sunday only
Living in capitalism, we forget to satisfy our basic needs, and work becomes an aim in itself. This allows corporations to drain their workers’ resources, but does not ensure them maximum productivity. On the contrary—stress, a poor diet, and fatigue prevent employees from working their hardest.
A common strategy of employers and supervisors has thus become using “soft” management techniques, including mindfulness, which is meant to help in being conscious about all one’s physical, mental, and emotional states and to accept them with understanding and equilibrium. Can mindfulness be regained for the purposes of setting boundaries, or when we use it in work do these borders blur completely? Seeking the difference between exploitation and management, the possibility of a work/life balance, are we critically reflecting on our place in the power structure? Or perhaps we are merely acting out a script it has written out for us?
In her exhibition for Foksal Gallery, Kinga Dobosz broaches the concept of the corporate chill room—a space created for the symbolic compensation of damage done to workers. The artist uses props associated with a picturesque landscape and recreation, but also power and control. The exhibition is complemented by visuals generated by Artificial Intelligence. These allude to the utopian hopes of ceding some of our work to machines, but also remind us that at work, we all can be replaced.