Archive 2014-15
Jens Standberg & Jenny Richards
- Venue: Fine Art Lecture Theatre
- Start: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 12:00:00 GMT
- End: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 12:00:00 GMT
Jens Strandberg is best defined as full-time-unemployed-artist. He spends most of his time in unemployment offices, claiming to be an artist, no-one believes him, he no longer believes it much himself. He sometimes goes on residencies, which he sees as a holiday from unemployed life. He has developed an intense aversion to work and a rampant joy towards laziness. As a living contradiction he has decided to no longer strive to take part in an art world that does not seem to want him as its guest, instead he has shift his focus towards rejected material, rejected people and things that tend to disappear from view. Although this lifestyle would, in societal terms, be defined as unproductive or even bad, he remains optimistic and sees this as a possibility to concentrate his efforts on unionising as a form of therapeutic empowerment using an ever evolving suitcase of psychological artefacts that has thoroughly been rejected by every possible funding body.
Jenny Richards' research, writing and projects focus on the politics of collaborative practices. She has developed a number of projects and texts which through this frame address issues of labour, the commons and gender, including: Manual Labours an ongoing collaborative research project with Sophie Hope exploring physical relationships to work, Improvised a project and publication with Goldsmiths University, and We Build Families: The aesthetics of Domestic Labour - Critical Cities Vol. 4 - a text written with Marissa Begonia and Louise Shelley on the work of 'Justice for Domestic Workers'. In 2012 Jenny completed an MA in Art and Politics from Goldsmiths University. Prior to this she has worked as Gallery Manager of artist-run cooperative, Cubitt Gallery and Programme Manager of the Collective Gallery in Edinburgh, working with artists and audiences on long-term projects of mutual interest including Jesse Jones (Against the Realm of the Absolute), Tessa Lynch (Alexandrite) and Aleksandra Mir (The How Not to Cookbook).