Werker Collective is currently presenting their most extensive exhibition to date at RADIUS, center for contemporary art and ecology, Delft, titled Becoming Uncommon Subjects.
Structured in three intersecting works for each of the three circles that shape the exhibition space of RADIUS, the exhibition displays three of the main methodologies in Werker’s practice: moving image, textile, and archive.
At its core, this exhibition zooms in on the topic of abolition as a framework to reconsider systems of labour under Capitalism. What could the abolition of labour look and feel like? How can we use its premises, tools, and tactics to imagine and enact other kinds of work that are not based on exploitation, competition, or indenture? By exploring the abolition of labour, this exhibition opens possibilities of reclaiming and redefining work, moving from labour as a method of repression and extraction to the constitution of spaces of solidarity and collective action that form the “Uncommons”, a proposal by author McKenzie Wark.
Amidst the aggravation and shameless exaltation of heteropatriarchal, populist, and nationalist ideologies, the urgency to enable spaces to challenge the status quo by means of queer, transfeminist, antiracist, and ecological perspectives is now more acute than ever. This exhibition departs from “uncommonality” as a shared condition and taps into its potential for resistance and self-determination. Through knowledge exchange, worker’s solidarity, and collaborative artistic practices, Werker Collective advocates for the abolition of oppressive systems and imagines their replacement.
