• Sat 31 10 2020 – Sun 07 03 2021 / 2:15 – 6:30 pm •
Film-Work

curated by MADHUSREE DUTTA

“In the mythology of the Akan people of Ghana, there is a bird called Sankofa. It flies into the future, but its head is turned towards the past. And it does this so that it can get a sense of where it should land in the future.” (Fatou Kandé Senghor, filmmaker)

Film-Work is a compilation of cinematic narratives about bodies, spaces, conventions and infrastructures, about emotions and strategies for the community production of work, and about personal work histories. The selection is curated by Madhusree Dutta, filmmaker and Artistic Director of the Akademie der Künste der Welt. She presents a variety of narratives from different places, genres and times, spanning 125 years of film history. The aim is to bring together cultural depictions of work as the core of social and public existence. The series begins with the untold stories of female telephone operators at the beginning of the 20th century, and ends with the modern-day shadow industry of ‘content cleaning’ in the service of the internet giants.

Whilst the exhibition Ghosts, Traces, Echoes: Works in Shifts as an art and research project foregrounds certain less well-known aspects and characteristics of regional work culture, Film-Work covers a broader space. The film program addresses the different meanings and realities behind the concept of work, and extends the conventional understanding of it; at the same time, it deals with the melancholy and loneliness that work can cause.

Film-Work will be presented in a specially designed miniature cinema room as part of the exhibition. The six programs (Re-framing the Timeline, Escaping the Urbanscape, Tactility of Skills and Goods, ... of Images and (Re)producing, Careful, don’t slip! and At our Service) are each about 100 minutes long. Each program will be shown over a period of three weeks during the opening hours of the exhibition. All the films will be shown in their original language with English or German subtitles. On 13 03 2021 and 14 03 2021, the Festival of Film-Work will be held at the Filmforum at Museum Ludwig, where all the films will be shown together.

Showtimes: Fri–Sun, 14:15–16:15 + 16:45–18:30
Venue: Academyspace, Herwarthstr. 3, 50672 Cologne
Free Admission | seats in the cinema room are limited to 3 *

Download film programme

*We look forward to welcoming you soon as a visitor to the exhibition Ghosts, Traces, Echoes: Works in Shifts. Please note that, for your, our and other visitors' security, the compliance with the general rules of hygiene and in perticular the use of a mask covering mouth and nose are mandatory during a visit. If you have any questions, please contact us at +49 (0)221 337748 92.
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