KuM, M.A. Rebane Mariliis

The Curator at Work, Sleeping!

| Yksivuotinen

During the home residency I will develop my practice as a free curator while working in the most comfortable place possible surrounded only by soft things – my bed. Architectural historian Beatriz Colomina points to the statistics that the Wall Street Journal published in 2012 according to which at least 80% of people work regularly from their bed. In the essay ‘The Century of a Bed’ (2014) Colomina says that the eight-hour shift [which labour movements had struggle to achieve little more than a century ago], has been rattled by post-industrialisation. As a result of the technological development work is collapsed back into the home domain where it is tackled even from the privacy of a bedroom. Colomina says: ‘the whole universe is concentrated on a small screen with the bed floating in an infinite sea of information’. According to sociologist Pascal Gielen the immaterial labor, that follows us even to our bedroom, has made working hours fluid while the neoliberal labour system blurs boarders between private and professional realms. Even if one does not carry their actual workload with them, work-related stress may still enter the bed by keeping the sleep at bay. While this may be particularly true for many during the state of emergency, art workers continue do their job in such circumstances unceasingly. Thus, the home residency would provide an opportunity for studying the precariousness of freelance curator’s position and allow time for envisioning structures of support for the times that lay ahead. I would use this time for building a curatorial practice that welcomes slowness and durability as well as values rest as an integral part of creative enthusiasm. Instead of doing work that is driven by the pursuit of novelty value, I would like to focus now and in the future on work that is based on longevity and qualitative criteria.