Hidden Labour Across (inter∞note 01)

Exhibition

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Author(s)

• Aarti Sunder
• Chetna Vora
• Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
• vinit agarwal
• Doreen Mende

The exhibition engages with the question of the extent to which the idea of internationalism as a political concept of the 20th century constitutes an unfinished narrative in ongoing debates on the globalization of work, technology and knowledge. Geopolitical global ruptures around 1989 / 90 mark a moment of a “potential history” (Ariella Aïsha Azoulay) that speaks about an internationalism of the 20th century, yet, in archival ruins of images, sounds, gazes, friendships, collaborations and bodies. The protagonists in these traces are students and workers across generations and geographies. The exhibition aims to operate as a space for research by the means of art for engaging with contemporary issues around labour in relation to technologies with the capacity to create worlds. The exhibition gathers concrete case studies and practices that take the form of performance-lectures, video-essays, “typewritings”, a song, printed matter and transgenerational conversations.

The extension inter∞note in the exhibition’s title marks an independent space-time for reflecting on the possibilities and impossibilities of research practices, contemporary art and curatorial / politics which function under current conditions of the ongoing coloniality of global capitalism. inter∞note can be understood as a research edition that may take the form of a paper, poster, booklet, interface, or any other format to reflect on the scientific research study Decolonizing Socialism. Entangled Internationalism by para-academic means: Hidden Labour Across (inter∞note 01) is the first curatorial forum of the transdisciplinary study. The name inter∞note alludes to the mobilization of the preposition INTER from economic and social contexts, for example, in socialist countries such as the GDR and beyond, to imagine a politics of friendship, or, a transgenerational conversation and modes of coalitions. The extension to NOTE refers to the need to take notes as essential part of the research process by means of listening, observing, reflecting, concretizing, time-lining, commenting, etc. The ∞ speaks of feedback loops, back and forward, infinitely.