52weeks

Week 19 . Anna Stump . “Migrant Labor did not exist …”

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Anna_Stump
Migrant Labor did not exist in the Wonderland of Knowledge Encyclopedia, 1938. 
Gouache and Collage on Paper, 2013. 
 
This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Anna Stump
 

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 18 . John Pitman Weber . Migrant

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JPW_small

Migrant, Woodcut, 2013

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by John Pitman Weber
 

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 17 . Charles Gaines and Ashley Hunt . Cultural (En)richment

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Gaines_Hunt

Cultural (En)richment, poster, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Charles Gaines and Ashley Hunt

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the poster, 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 16 . Jim Goldberg . Akima and Arif

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BANG_We Have Only Seen Father Once_Triptych_ref

Akima and Arif. Bangladesh, 2007.

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Jim Goldberg

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

“We drove all day and into the night to reach this village in the north of Bangladesh. The village could not sustain itself, as it was no longer farmable. The trees had been cut down, the streams poisoned, and the floods had gotten worse.

There were plenty of children, grandfathers, and grandmothers, but few mothers, fathers, and teenagers. Everyone who was of age and able had left to seek work in Dhaka, or paid away their savings to a middleman who arranged for them to be sent to the Middle East.

Akuma had only seen her father once, seven years before, when he returned to the village and Arif was conceived.

Three fathers from the village had disappeared that year alone.”

— Jim Goldberg
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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 15 . Who Builds Your Architecture? (WBYA?)

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WBYA-52weeks-imageFinal

WBYA? proposes new standards be added to the AIA Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct in order to fulfill our professional and ethical obligation to those who build our architecture.  (Printable PDF, 2014)    

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Who Builds Your Architecture? an interdisciplinary advocacy group that works to educate architects and other allied fields on the effects of globalization on architecture labor. WBYA? promotes fair working conditions and sustainable building practices at building sites worldwide.
 
To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of this weeks’ contribution, please click here
 
For more about WBYA? 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 14 . Pedro Lasch . Of Saadiyat’s Rectangles & Curves

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Lasch_Sierra_Saadiyat_AbuDhabiFosterGehryHadidNouvelViñoly

Of Saadiyat’s Rectangles & Curves, or Santiago Sierra’s One Sheikh, Two Museum Directors, Three Curators, One University President, Two Architects, and One Artist Remunerated to Sleep for 30 Days in 13 x 14 foot Windowless Room with Shared Bathroom and No Door (2013).

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Pedro Lasch
 
To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here
 
The unlimited edition print is part of Lasch’s ART BIENNIALS & OTHER GLOBAL DISASTERS project and has been designed specifically for 52 Weeks. Lasch and his collaborators in Beirut have also been displaying the 52 Weeks of Gulf Labor poster and its regular calendar updates in the context of the ART/WORLD/DISASTER exhibition at the AUB Byblos Bank Art Gallery between November 28, 2013 and January 19, 2014. This message is timed to be the closing component of that exhibition.
_________________________________________________________________________

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 13 . Marina Naprushkina . Life is as beautiful as…

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life is as beautiful_sm

Life is as beautiful as… Poster, 2013
Office for Anti-Propagada, Marina Naprushkina
This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Marina Naprushkina
 
To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the poster, 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 12 . Rasha Salti . And Justice for All

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Salti

Justice For All, text contribution by Rasha Salti

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Rasha Salti
 
To download, print, or read the text, 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 11 . Lynn Love and Ann Sappenfield . 50° Celsius

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50degrees

50° Celsius, page layout from 2010 Supplement to the New Emirati Britannica, Third Edition

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Lynn Love and Ann Sappenfield
The 2010 Supplement focuses on science, technology and natural history, and was commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE for the Tenth Sharjah Biennial, 2011.
 
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 10 . NO DEBT IS AN ISLAND . Andrew Ross and MTL (Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain)

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NoDebtisanIsland

Launch of a solidarity initiative, December 2013
A triptych; multimedia components and a printable PDF

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Andrew Ross and MTL (Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain)

A high school graduate with an offer from a prestigious art institute dreams of  artworld renown and takes out loans that will burden her for decades. Her brother is enrolled at NYU, national leader in student debt–the university is a growth machine, feeding off tuition and cheap credit to expand at home and overseas. In Bangladesh, the eldest son of a heavily indebted family dreams of Gulf riches, and borrows money to pay his recruitment and transit fees for passage to the UAE. There, on the “Island of Happiness,” Abu Dhabi’s showpiece real estate venture, his bonded labor is now linked to the “indenture” of the American students. Their respective financial obligations are connected to, and amplified by, Abu Dhabi’s over-leveraged boom economy, which rests on an ever-growing carbon debt. No Debt Is An Island traces the chain of debt that sustains the fortunes of the international art market, the global aspirations of Anglophone higher education, and the ascent of the Gulf petroleum states.

BREAK THE CHAINS

Make the links
Follow the money
Do the research
Walk the talk
Pressure the brands
Raise the bar
Break the chain
(and keep the oil in the soil)

From NYU to the Guggenheim – February 17 – 21st

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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

Who's Building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi?