The Value of One Hour Work

The work environment is changing inexorably. Which dimension does work have in the current discourse? Which values do we attach to work in today’s society? The value of one hour work is a project dealing with labor, and its aim is to raise awareness of the different facets - apart from money - that work can have within society.

The value of one hour work is a project that uses artistic and participatory approaches to deal with the topic of work and labor. The main question that moved it along from the beginning might be simple but remains crucial: which values do we assign to work- time? The project started with a research phase in which we confronted ourselves with the works of H.Arendt, F.Berardi and R.Sennett to get a clearer notion of how the sphere of work has been evolving in the last century. 

Which values do we assign to work- time?

During an on-site installation in public space, we collected the thoughts of people we asked about the values they attribute to their work-time. Out of these thoughts we derived further questions in order to address key issues concerning the values of work. As final action, we installed 500 cubes at the University of Applied Arts for people to take home and place in their working spaces. The cubes were accompanied by Zines featuring 5 questions that reappeared over the whole project process and should help to reflect on different aspects of work. A big poster was used to collect impressions and leave a trace that would serve us as findings and as a base of further development of the project.

Time

Summer 2016

Location

Vienna

Team

Alessia Scuderi

Julia Wohlfahrt