Thank You For Ruling us
2019
version 1: 7 photographs, 150 x 106 cm (sublimation prints on fabric) 1 photograph, 90 x 60 cm (Lambda print)
version 2: 6 photographs, 149 x 105 cm (inkjet print on paper and dibond panel) and an essay of the same name inside a reader Come Closer Prague Biennial


In this essey and photographic series, I focused on the concept of unpaid work. For individuals for whom this work goes without saying. Some would call it leisure or recreation, it is manual labor, monotonous toil. It is mainly carried out by craftsmen, workers, and farmers. Through it, they become a part of the family, the local community. Even though this activity physically destroys and plagues them, they won’t give up. They would lose their social status.

We don’t know much about these people. We don’t know their values properly. We just suspect that they are somewhere, that we share the same world with them. The non-differentiate and smeared portraits serve as a reminder of their existence and as a tribute to their unpaid work.

This series of photographs is accompanied by a multi-page essay which, from a very personal perspective, reveals the position of unpaid work in various strata. At the same time, it offers the possibility of how to recognize the unpaid work of these people, to give the unknown individuals from different social background a concrete shape and social sense.


















photo: Tatiana Takáčová and author’s archive