Dear friend,

We are pleased to invite you to the opening of Werker 2 — A Spoken History of the Young Worker, that will take place simultaneously in Krakow and in Winterthur this month of May 2016.

This edition of Werker Magazine presents images and documents that have been compiled from secondhand bookstores, online booksellers, personal archives, and street markets over the last few years. The selected documents originate from different geographies and historical contexts.

The body of the young worker is at the very core of this research: A body that is disciplined in schools, educated at home, and put to work, often for a meager salary, and at times obliged to migrate. This is a body that is also at work when it rests, rejuvenating the leisure industry with its youthful expression, consuming in order to stimulate additional injection of capital. Nevertheless, the body of the young worker is a body with the capacity to revolt. it has political agency and fights exploitation, imprisonment, expulsion, and murder.

Next to the male narratives that constitute history as we are taught it in school, there is a ‘spoken history’ that was not written or that has been discharged from the history books. Walter Benjamin, in ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ (1940), introduces the notion of the ‘tradition of the oppressed,’ which he defines as the medium in which the present is connected to all lost causes and the struggles of those who have lost their histories.

Rethinking the relationship between photography and history through Benjamin’s ‘tradition of the oppressed,’ Werker Magazine proposes a stage for queering the history of labour. How can documents from different instants in history be performed by its readers?

Pre-organized local collectives or any engaged visitors are invited to perform this collection of documents using the microphones and tools provided in the exhibition space. All recordings will be uploaded to an online archive and will be broadcast in public space, transcending the borders of the museum.

Part of the exhibition Imagineering — (Re)activating the Photographic curated by Lars Willumet for Krakow Photomonth.

17 May – 21 August 2016

Opening: May 15, 2016, 13:00 hrs

Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art Szczepański Square 3a

31-011 Krakow, Poland

Opening hours:

Tue-Sun 11:00-19:00 hrs, 26 May closed

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Part of SITUATIONS/Proletariats curated by Thomas Seelig as a part of the Manifesta 11 Parallel Events

28 May – 11 September 2016

Opening: 27 May, 2016, 18:00 hrs

Fotomuseum Winterthur

Grüzenstrasse 44 + 45

CH-8400 Winterthur, Switzerland

Opening hours:

Tue–Sun 11:00 -18:00 hrs

Wed 11:00 -20:00 hrs, Mon closed

Website:  www.werkermagazine.org

Email: info@werkermagazine.org