Event

Harun Farocki: Consider Labour | Preview & Panel Discussion

Thursday 2 February 2023

Panel Discussion followed by exhibition preview and drinks reception

On this page
Date
Thursday 2 February 2023, 18:00 - 21:00
Location
Crawford Building

University of Dundee
Perth Road
Dundee
DD1 4HT

Crawford Building
Price
Free
Booking required?
Yes

Cooper Gallery is delighted to invite you to the preview of Harun Farocki: Consider Labour, the first major exhibition in Scotland of significant works by pioneering filmmaker Harun Farocki (1944-2014).

A panel discussion will start the evening followed by a chance to view the exhibition and a drinks reception.

The panel discussion will reflect on the abiding potency of Farocki’s endeavour and its pertinence in critically engaging with the politics and representation of labour under capitalism today.

Chaired by curator Sophia Yadong Hao, the panel will include artist and curator Antje Ehmann who has initiated and produced the project Labour in a Single Shot in collaboration with Harun Farocki, writer and organiser layla-roxanne hill, and curator Prof. Sarah Perks.

Schedule

Doors open: 5.45pm
Panel discussion: 6–7pm 
Exhibition viewing and drinks reception: 7–9pm 

Booking

The event is free and open to all.
Book a seat for the panel discussion via Eventbrite
The exhibition preview and drinks reception is unticketed.

Speakers' Biographies

Antje Ehmann is a curator and artist based in Berlin. She studied literature, philosophy and media studies from 1988 to 1995, and worked with the team of the Duisburg Film Week and the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen between 1992 and 1998. Ehmann married Harun Farocki in 2001. Ehmann curated numerous group and solo exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, together with Carles Guerra, Okwui Enwezor, Marius Babias amongst others. Ehmann is also co-editor of multiple books, including the volume Weimar Republic 1918-1933 in the German Research Foundation project History of Documentary Film in Germany (2000-2005). Ehmann has conducted workshops and exhibitions of the ongoing project Labour in a Single Shot in collaboration with Harun Farocki from 2011 to 2014, and since 2017, with Eva Stotz and Luis Feduchi. She was also involved in the production of the project as part of the Venice Biennale in 2013 and 2015. 

layla-roxanne hill is a writer, curator and organiser, living in Glasgow, Scotland. Her work focuses on anti-colonial cultural contributions, and the way our conditions move us to act. She is also active in the trade union movement, holding elected positions within the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Scottish TUC (STUC). layla-roxanne is co-author of Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022) and is a member of the Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) board.

Sarah Perks is an interdisciplinary curator and writer based in the Tees Valley working across a number of fields including contemporary art, design, science and film. She is Professor of Curating in the School of Arts and Creative Industries at Tees­side University, which includes international art gallery and museum MIMA. A specialist in relational curatorial strategy, her research focuses on interaction with socio-political and socio-economic issues including class, inclusivity and environmental concerns.  

One of Creative Review’s 50 Creative Leaders in 2017, Sarah has led major participation, performance and curatorial projects with international artists including Rosa Barba, Phil Collins, David Lynch, Rachel Maclean, Noorafshan Mirza & Brad Butler and Qasim Riza Shaheen. Sarah previous­ly held the position of Programme and Engagement Director at Cornerhouse (2008-2015) and the joint appointment of Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University and inaugural Artistic Director at HOME (2014-2019), Manchester.

Sa­rah has published over twenty essays and books across critical and creative writing, including Artists Moving Image in Britain Since 1989 (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art & Yale University Press, 2019). Sarah is a trustee of Alchemy Film & Arts (Hawick, Scotland) and Programme Advisor (Artist Moving Image) for the BFI London Film Festival.

About the exhibition

Bringing together the ten-screen video installation Labour in a Single Shot with Farocki’s most celebrated filmic essays; Workers Leaving the Factory (1995), Georg K. Glaser – Writer and Smith (1988), and In Comparison (2009), Harun Farocki: Consider Labour at Cooper Gallery critically questions the technological, aesthetic, and political conditions of making labour visible. 

Re-inventing the 'filmic essay', Farocki’s thought-provoking oeuvre investigates how capitalism, consumerism, media, technology and war intertwine with all our lives for the past century. Influenced by theatre director Bertolt Brecht, philosopher Theodor Adorno, and film director Jean-Luc Godard, Farocki’s unique style of non-narrative-filmmaking consistently addresses practices of labour and the production of images that are concerned with understanding, reflecting and confronting modern society. 

Read more on our exhibition page.
 

Artists' Biographies

Harun Farocki was born in 1944 in Neutitschein in Czechoslovakia from an Indian father and a German mother. He spent his childhood in India and Indonesia before the family settled in Hamburg and Bad Godesberg. Farocki spent his adult life in Berlin until his passing in 2014.

Farocki was one of the most important filmmakers and video artists of contemporary documentaries and essay films working in Germany and his oeuvre comprises more than 120 feature films, essay films, documentaries and video-installations.

Farocki had numerous group and solo exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, including: MOMA, New York; MUMOK, Vienna, Jeu de Paume, Paris; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Tate Modern, London; and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw. Farocki participated twice in Documenta, 1997 and 2007. In 2015, Farocki was featured in the 56th International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale curated by Okwui Enwezor and received Special Mention from the Jury.

Farocki’s films and installations are generally socio-political in nature and reveal a keen interest in the role of technology in modern society. His films have dealt with such subjects as the Vietnam War, capitalism, labour systems, surveillance technology and military reconnaissance. Another recurrent theme in Farocki’s work was the investigation of images and what lies behind them, of what is really visible to the viewer and likewise what remains invisible - essentially the possibilities of seeing. As Thomas Elsaesser said: ‘Farocki’s films are a constant dialogue with images, with image making, and with the institutions that produce and circulate these images.’ His films and installations are difficult to categorize and demand close viewing. Nothing is as it seems and the viewers are challenged to keep questioning what they see.

www.harunfarocki.de
 

Antje Ehmann is a curator and artist based in Berlin. She studied literature, philosophy and media studies from 1988 to 1995, and worked with the team of the Duisburg Film Week and the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen between 1992 and 1998. Ehmann married Harun Farocki in 2001. Ehmann curated numerous group and solo exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, together with Carles Guerra, Okwui Enwezor, Marius Babias amongst others. Ehmann is also co-editor of multiple books, including the volume Weimar Republic 1918-1933 in the German Research Foundation project History of Documentary Film in Germany (2000-2005). Ehmann has conducted workshops and exhibitions of the ongoing project Labour in a Single Shot in collaboration with Harun Farocki from 2011 to 2014, and since 2017, with Eva Stotz and Luis Feduchi. She was also involved in the production of the project as part of the Venice Biennale in 2013 and 2015. 

 

Access

The gallery is on two floors. First floor has ramped access and disabled toilet.

Second floor is accessible via lift and for wheelchair access via a stairclimber. The panel discussion will take place on the second floor. 

Please email in advance if you require lift or stairclimber access so we can arrange support.

Large print versions of the exhibition information handout are available, please ask our Guides.

If you require live captions for the panel discussion please email to request.

Alcoholic drinks will be served. Non alcoholic refreshments available.

All enquiries please contact: exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk

Image credits

Header
Cristián Silva-Avária, ConcreteLabour in a Single Shot. Rio de Janeiro, 2012. From Labour in a Single Shot by Antje Ehmann and Harun Farocki, 2013.

Gallery
Panel discussion and preview photography by Sarah Smart

Funding support

Harun Farocki: Consider Labour is supported by the Goethe Institut, Glasgow.

logo block of funders: Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Goethe Institut
Enquiries

Cooper Gallery

exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk
Event type Gallery event
Event category Design and Art