The title of the show comes from the cult book A Worker in a Worker’s State by Hungarian dissident Miklos Haraszti, which deals with the exploitative working conditions and bold acts of worker resistance he witnessed during his time at the Red Star Tractor Factory in the early 1970s. He describes the practice of making ‘homers’ – objects crafted by the worker in defiance of regulations – as an outlet for creativity and agency that disrupted the monotony of factory life and challenged the exploitative system of piece-rates. The sociable creativity involved in the making of homers can be contrasted with the post-Fordist situation, in which creative urges are siphoned back into the economic cycle and emotional energy is channelled into competitiveness at work.

The exhibition brings together works which consider the adaption of the lived environment to the demand for continuous connectivity and the economic mobilisation of human affectivity, while proposing modes, attitudes and lifestyles that liberate time for enjoyment, travel and learning. Escape routes from the rules and rationale of the contemporary social and economic order are discovered in unexpected places, from painterly evocations of social celebrations during communism, to meditations on the freedom of play in public spaces. The aspiration for happiness and self-fulfilment is contrasted with the mental pollution emanating from information overload, while other works focus on attempts to revive non-capitalistic forms of knowledge and promote uneconomic attitudes in human relations.

Other Artworks:

Exhibition history:

1. Praha, Futura, Center for Contemporary Art

FUTURA, center for contemporary Art, Praha. Link to the exhibition

2. Budapest, Trafo gallery

Trafo, Budapest website link / Trafó gallery budapest PDF

3. Lodz, Muzeum SZtuki

Link to the gallery website