moira zoitl.

The AG Arbeit (Labor Group) was initiated as part of To Have and To Need (Haben und Brauchen) in February 2014.
We approach artistic labour by beginning with our subjective experiences and interpreting them politically. We work with questionnaires, investigating the relation between artistic work, care work, paid and unpaid work, visible and invisible labor. In the course of our work we have paid attendance fees for those present during meetings.

As a way to engage adequately in an ongoing dialogue on working conditions of artists between the Senate Chancellery for Cultural Affairs and artists living in Berlin, in 2014 we suggested the concept of a persona, a fictional character that could be performed by multiple artists, actors and activists. Starting with personal experiences, this persona could represent a communication partner to mediate and negotiate artistic working conditions, at the same time developing a subjective yet manifold voice of self-empowerment for us, as artists. When we imagine the persona, we think of a she, intervening during events, daring to voice her discomfort and hesitation, addressing precarity without reserve.