Am I Lost In The Labour, Or Is This My Own Design? (2024)

3 lightboxes, A2 format.

The work exists out of three lightboxes, each of them with different content on display. As part of a larger research project called The Artist Travel Agency. The format of the work makes a connection to the bright advertisement panels travel agencies use to make their destinations look shiny and attractive. On the left one can see a photograph of a landscape, with a big tree in the middle. Though the destination of this image does not reference any exotic holiday or far-away trip, it comes closest to the feeling of a travel agency destination and the place most desired by me to empty my brain and take some time off. The middle lightbox shows a diagram, mapping different jobs, their relationship and purpose in function of each other and their complex existence. This drawing was made halfway through 2024 when the combination of these different jobs came to a crashing halt when I was put on sick leave from the non-artistic job. It forces me to stop, take a good look at what I'm doing and figure out a new model of working. Though this new model is a search yet to be completed, the middle lightbox shows the system as it existed so far. The last lightbox shows the invitation to the exhibition the work was made for, the financial agreement and an invoice for the costs made by the artist to create the work for the exhibition. The invoice is made on an analogue document and is not addressed to the organisers of the exhibition, referencing the lack of support. Later on, legal documents were added to the work, showing that the organisation did not hold up their part of the agreement and never paid the artist.

Am I Lost In The Labour, Or Is This My Own Design? is a genuine question of how to reorganise the structure of work by providing the viewer with the information needed to understand the reality of the economy of a young emerging artist and the unsafe context surrounding this. It is an invitation to reflect on where I failed to create a better version for the future.
 

The Solo Project- EAT 2024