All posts by Joseph

52weeks

Week 30 . Jaret Vadera . Blue Skies, White Walls, Brown Bodies

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​Blue Skies, White Walls, Brown Bodies, poster, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by  Jaret Vadera

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

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Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

52weeks

Week 29 . Mariam Ghani . And we wondered

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Sharjah, 2009
​And we wondered, poster, 2014

Text based in part on interviews given to the Swedish press by former Gulf Air flight attendants.

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Mariam Ghani 

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

52weeks

Week 28 . TODD AYOUNG and JELENA STOJANOVIĆ . A Paradox on Citizenry and Creativity

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Todd_Gulf_Labor_FINAL1
A Paradox on Citizenry and Creativity, poster, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by TODD AYOUNG and JELENA STOJANOVIĆ

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

52weeks

Week 27 . JAŠA . Crystal C

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JAŠA_Crystal C Tree_small
Crystal C / planting, Pioneer Works, New York, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by JAŠA
To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

As a concluding action of Crystal C project, I planted a tree, a Weeping Willow, that was part of the installation.

In many situations of artist’s labour, the conditions and value are misunderstood in the market and money driven contexts; therefore I strongly believe that we need to fight for a true understanding of work and the motivations that fuel it. Bare survival is a reality of many; poets as workers. We need to redefine the idea of success, see it as a fist of clay that has to be molded by many hands into a new shape. Togetherness is not only a word, it should be the world.
— JAŠA
_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum). 

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

52weeks

Week 26 . G.H. Rabbath . SIGNING WITH LIGHT

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Rabbath

‘SIGNING WITH LIGHT’, still from a GIF animation, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by G.H. Rabbath
 
To view more images from the series please click here
 
‘SIGNING WITH LIGHT’ is an ongoing performative photography project by G.H. Rabbath taking place at the 392RMEIL393 art project spaces, in Beirut. People coming into the gallery space are told about the Gulf Labor project, and the ones who accept are photographed while reading posts from gulflabour.org or signing the petition. 
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Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum). 

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

52weeks

Week 25 . Rawi Hage . CARNIVAL

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RAWI_HAGE

CARNIVAL, poster, 2012 

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Rawi Hage
 

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

The text is an excerpt from the novel CARNIVAL by Rawi Hage (2012).

The author is grateful to the following people for their contribution to the design, and to the translations from English into the various languages. Jennifer de Freitas at Associés Libres Design, Foreign language typesetting: Resolvis.ca, Anita Badami and Rahul Varma (Hindi), Rita Boustany (Arabic), Asoke Chakravarty (Bengali), Dominique Fortier (French), Murtaza Haider (Urdu). Also a special thanks to Madhav Badami, Rana Bose and Azza Tawil.

P.S.

Guggenheim_1 (1)

On Saturday, March 29 protesters dropped fake dollar bills into the atrium of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The action was organized by G.U.L.F (Global Ultra Luxury Faction).

To view more images of the action click here

To view video of the action click here

_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum). 

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

52weeks

Week 24 . The Illuminator and Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.) . Rebranding the Guggenheim

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
At 10:00 pm on March 24, 2014, members of Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.) joined by the OWS Illuminator occupied the facade of the Guggenheim Museum in Uptown Manhattan for over 40 minutes.

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by The Illuminator and Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.)
To view more images from the action please click here
To view video of the action click here

The Illuminator Joins Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction:

Rebranding the Guggenheim for Exploiting Migrant Workers in Abu Dhabi

At 10:00 pm on March 24, 2014, members of Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.) joined by the OWS Illuminator occupied the facade of Guggenheim Museum in Uptown Manhattan for over 40 minutes. G.U.L.F. rebranded the Guggenheim’s flagship museum in protest of complicity at the ill-treatment and economic exploitation of migrant workers in Abu Dhabi who are beginning to build the new Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim on  Saadiyat (aka ‘Island of Happiness’. G.U.L.F.’s act of messaging solidarity follows recent reports from Human Rights Watch, as well as investigative findings from members of the Gulf Labor Coalition (some of whom overlap with G.U.L.F.) who have just returned from a fact-finding mission in Abu Dhabi where where they visited several worker camps and spoke with workers. They confirmed a reality that is the opposite of happy: multiple labor violations, generated by a system built on human suffering and debt bondage.

Last night, G.U.L.F. renewed the call on the Guggenheim to own up to its responsibility as a leading cultural, educational and art institution, and not take economic advantage of the workers seeking the ‘Gulf Dream’. Workers should not be caught in a debt spiral where they must work for years on building the museum only to pay the fees that brought them to Abu Dhabi in the first place. Guggenheim has a choice here. It must refuse to lend its cultural capital to build the ‘Island of Happiness’ where art and luxury mask and maintain a racialized exploitative labor regime, while using its PR department and those of its partners to hide the facts and mislead the public. Unless the Guggenheim changes course with the new museum in Abu Dhabi, G.U.L.F. will continue to remind the Guggenheim that their brand is: “1% Global Museum.”

 

1% Museums means 1% Art.

Art built on Oppression Loses Meaning.

There are other possible Futures of Art.

Related Film Screening | America’s War Workers

Reported by Anjali Kamat & Produced by Samuel Black for Fault Lines Al-Jazeera

March 27, 2014
SCA Flex Space
20 Cooper Square, Floor 4
6:00 PM

Post-Screening Discussion with Anjali Kamat, Samuel Black, Paula Chakravartty & Darryl Li

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52weeks

Week 23 . Hend Al Mansour . Fist of the Day

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Hend Al Mansour_Fist of the Day_small
Fist of the Day, silk screen print, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Hend Al Mansour
 
To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here
 
To view more works from the current exhibition Labor-Migrant-Gulf at Southwestern College, San Diego, click here
_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum). 

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

52weeks

Week 22 . 100 Artists . West Coast Artists vs. Guggenheim and Louvre Museums

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sTwo Botehs March 11 2014
West Coast Artists vs. Guggenheim and Louvre Museums, mixed media, 2014

To view more works from the exhibit click here

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is Labor-Migrant-Gulf, an Exhibit at Southwestern College, San Diego, March 13 to April 10, 2014
 
Labor/Migrant/Gulf explores migrant workers struggles throughout the world with pointed emphasis on workers from Central and Southeast Asia who work in the Arabian/Persian Gulf, Mexican workers on the US-Mexican border, and California’s migrant history. The exhibit at Southwestern College, a few miles away from the US – Mexican border joins artists from around the world to bring awareness to the human struggles of the world’s poorest laborers. Many of the artists in the exhibit that have shown in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah) first became aware of the conditions at the Sharjah Biennial in 2009 and began a petition to push the Guggenheim Museum to be mindful of the harsh and unsafe working conditions. A sub-theme is the artist’s identification with migrant laborers.  Perhaps artists are one or two rungs above the world’s poorest labor pools?  This exhibit attempts to break down hierarchies between established artist and other artists, therefore children and young adults are included.  Labor/Migrant/Gulf at Southwestern College will be organized in two parts: One part is a traditional group exhibit of about a dozen artists. The other part is collective pieces made up of art from about 90 artists to form the shape of large boteh or paisley designs. The boteh/paisley is a significant ornamental design that has religious, historical, colonial, counter culture, and labor meaning and inferences. The boteh/paisley designs honor the Asian migrants that inspired this art exhibit. 
 
– Doris Bittar, artist/curator
 

_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).  

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

 

52weeks

Week 21 . Maryam Monalisa Gharavi . [they] built for eternity

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[they] built for eternity - gharavi - 2014

they built for eternity, acrylic and inkjet, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Maryam Monalisa Gharavi
 

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum). 

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org