Exhibits & Events

The COVID-19 pandemic has reframed how we characterize the intrinsic nature of work. Under lockdown, our worlds became comparatively microcosmic. For some, the home became central to the performance of the “outside world,” eroding boundaries between public and private spheres. Those working outside the home, on the other hand, faced questions of calculated risk and survival every day.

“Essential work” and “essential worker” became household terms during the COVID-19 pandemic, exposing long-standing fissures in the labor we undertake, its relative protections, and its treatment of various demographics. Today, we find ourselves in a changing labor landscape marked by new standards for work/life balance, the Great Resignation, resurgent unionization movements, “quiet quitting,” and other workplace phenomena.

Essential Work brings together a diverse group of international artists to examine these questions of labor and value. Together, they posit artwork as essential to our creative economies and to society as we seek new ways to connect, communicate, and understand our world.

Featuring work by Amy Hicks, Rose Lowder, Nicole McLaughlin, Warren Neidich, Fernando Orellana, Ruth Prieto Arenas, and Rebecca Szeto.