Work it Out
Self-optimisation, readiness for change, stress, efficiency, bureaucracy and increased digitalisation. These are some of the topics adressed in the exhibition 'Work it Out'. An exhibition that focuses on the future of work.
What is work and why do we work? Are there limits to our working lives? Can we in the future create a more sustainable working life for the individual and society? And how can art and the art museum create the framework for new thinking about the working life of the future?
These are some of the key issues in Work it Out. The exhibition focuses on the individual in modern working life, and through interdisciplinary collaborations and experiments, we explore together the potential of art and the museum – both in relation to dealing with the issues that seem to be an insoluble part of our working life, but also in relation to bring new perspectives on the working life of the future.
Working life plays a significant role in our society for our culture, economy and identity as well. Performance pressure, expectations of self-realization and increased demands for resilience stand as inevitable conditions in today's working life. With the Corona crisis, the opportunities for future working life have really come up on the agenda. Maybe it's time to put an end to old beliefs and rethink how and how much we go to work?
Exhibiting artists
“We spend a lot of our waking hours going to work, but perhaps too little time wondering what work really is. We think we know, but it crumbles for many of us when we try to define it. Art can demand that kind of answer from us by exposing the paradoxes of work and the more irrational reality, and therefore questioning absolutely essential parts of our existence and getting us a new place in the view of ourselves and why we actually work. ”
– Dennis Nørmark, anthropologist, author and a member of the exhibition's visionary board.
A Visionary Exhibition
Work it Out won the Bikuben Foundation's exhibition prize, Vision 2018, for an exhibition idea that thematizes a highly topical topic, and at the same time rethinks the role of art and the art museum in relation to society. By letting the exhibition occupy both the museum, the city's spaces and selected workplaces, the project focuses on how contemporary art can contribute to a debate about the working life of the future. Work it Out offers interaction with and between art, museum guests, companies and the museum's own staff.
Work it Out is the physically largest special exhibition at Kunsten ever. It is presented both in the museum's large, open Sky-lit Galleries, where the museum's collection is usually presented, and in the museum's Main Gallery, where you will meet engaging and challenging art, workshops and an ambitious activity program that also unfolds in local businesses and public institutions. The exhibition consists of both completely new works, created uniquely for the exhibition and its guests, as well as existing works by Danish and international contemporary artists, who all deal with modern working life in different ways.
In connection with the exhibition, Kunsten works with a visionary board consisting of professor of psychology, Svend Brinkmann, anthropologist, Dennis Nørmark, and researcher in learning and innovation processes, Steen Elsborg, the Danish artist, Jeppe Hein, CEO of the company Fibertex, Jørgen Bech Madsen and HR manager for Samsung in Aalborg, Rikke Holmgaard.
Supported by
