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Peltz exhibition to examine the impact of complaining

Research theme explored through a month-long series of free public events

When we complain, what are the physical impacts on our bodies? And what happens to us when we feel unable to complain? These questions and more will be explored in Manual Labours: The Complaining Body – a forthcoming month-long art exhibition at the Peltz Gallery at Birkbeck School of Arts.

Running at the Bloomsbury-based gallery from Friday February 5 to Thursday, March 3, the exhibition presents the process, findings and analysis of an 18-month-long investigation into the physical and emotional effects of complaining, receiving complaints and not being able to complain in the context of work.

This research has been initiated by Dr Sophie Hope, of Birkbeck’s Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, and freelance curator Jenny Richards. It has been developed with the artist Sarah Browne, choreographer Hamish MacPherson and writer Ivor Southwood who have produced three new commissions in response to the theme. Their research has involved a series of workshops with call centre workers in a London Borough Council, commuters on a train station platform in Worcester and staff dealing with student complaints in a UK University.

Strands of the research will be presented at the Peltz Gallery in the form of free events held at specific points throughout the month-long exhibit, including a workshop, game, round table and screening. The events have been designed to invite visitors to engage and discuss the findings, drawing on what complaints we share and can collectivise around.

The exhibit programme

The Exhibition Launch: (Friday 5 February 2016, 6-8pm)

  • Launch of the exhibition and the new publication Manual Labours Manual #3 alongside Ivor Southwood’s commissioned essay, The Uncomplaining Body. Ivor will introduce his essay and refreshments will be served.

Breastbeating Lunchtime Card Game (Tuesday 16 February 2016, 1-2.30pm)

  • What is conveyed in futile, not fully articulated or other kinds of ‘wrong’ complaints? How can complaining be embraced as a way not of fixing things but being together?
    Join Hamish MacPherson for a lunchtime card game of Breastbeating. This special event will offer a chance to think about complaining by playing and developing this game simulating an after work session in the pub where the only thing you have to do is moaning, mourn and lament.

Analysing The Uncomplaining Body (Tuesday 1 March 2016, 4-6pm)

  • Join us for an afternoon round-table workshop to collectively analyse some of the research gathered through The Complaining Body project. The event focuses on the physical implications of the stifling of complaints and how the body responds through the expulsions of matter in the form of diarrhoea, vomiting and crying. We invite you to join us in sharing your experiences and perspectives, helping to construct and imagine what the physical effects of a collective complaint might produce.

The Revolting Body, selected by Sarah Browne (Tuesday 1 March 2016, 6pm)

  • Following the workshop we will screen The Revolting Body a selection of moving image material from diverse sources including artist film and video, amateur collectives and contemporary protest groups, produced over the last forty years. The ‘body’ alluded to in the programme title might be an individual or a collective body, troubled with imminent eruption.

Whistleblowing as Complaining; Blacklisting as Bullyin (Wednesday 3 March 2016, 6pm)

  • This workshop brings together activists and academics to explore cases of speaking out and complaining about working conditions individually and collectively. We will be sharing examples of the personal, mental, physical, material and legal ingredients needed to complain and the impacts and implications. Presentations include Lucy Parker’s current project Blacklist and her research into the experiences of blacklisted workers.

The exhibition is the second phase of Manual Labours – a research project initiated by Dr Sophie Hope and Jenny Richards which explores physical and emotional relationships to work.

Speaking about the Peltz exhibition, Dr Hope said: “The emotional labour involved in listening to and managing complaints; the social and cultural conditions of complaining and  the reasons we don’t complain all have physical impacts on the body as a site of resistance, absorption and expulsion.

“Our research explores the normative discourses of the good, healthy, productive body which are disrupted by the complaining body. The uncomplaining body is often in fact a sick body, having to perform a healthy body and happy self by internalising and stifling our complaints. The exhibition reflects on stories of how and why the complaining body is performed, silenced and internalised.”

The exhibit has been supported by the Wellcome Trust public engagement grant, the Institutional Strategic Support Fund.

Manual Labours: The Complaining Body runs at the Peltz Gallery, (Birkbeck School of Arts, 43 Gordon Square, 2016 WC1H 0PD) on Friday February 5, and runs until Thursday, March 3. Opening Hours: Monday-Friday: 10am-8pm and Saturday: 10am – 5pm. Closed Sundays.

To find out more visit www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/peltz-gallery

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