GuestRoomMaribor

Simon Farid: Segments from the study room for critical and expanded invigilation

A collection of research and gestures that examines the everyday conditions of museum guards and proposes routes towards a more expansive understanding of the role.

This collection includes:
• examinations of cultural depictions of museum guards
• research into famous artists who previously worked as guards
• an archive of guard-led art exhibitions
• attempts to contextualise guarding within wider solitary and unproductive labours
• proposals for further study

By positioning the guards’ condition as a site for serious and speculative study the artist hopes to propose potential alternative relationships between exhibited art and those paid to facilitate such exhibition.

About the artist:
SIMON FARID a sometime artist and more time art gallery security guard based in London. At work, he is an overt surveillance worker, embedded within an art institution, subject to the hierarchies and injustices one would expect there.
As is common in the UK, most gallery guards in his institution are themselves practicing artists, many aspiring to make the transition from guard to guarded. This leaves the institution in the strange situation of having lots of super interesting, creative people silently standing around in rooms for them. This has led him to experiment with a number of tactics to nudge this situation into directions that could enact new models of working together, exhibiting art and running institutions in a more horizontal way:

1. He collaborates with some of his guarding colleagues on performance and [REDACTED].
2. He collaborates with some other colleagues in a public art/guarding group called the ‘Invigilator Research Network’. Together they present public projects exploring different aspects of the guard’s condition, intersecting workers rights, art making ethics, artworld hierarchies and surveillance practices. http://invigilatorresearch.org
3. He retain a personal practice concerned with these topics. Here is an example of his recent work: http://simonfarid.com/towards
Through these various approaches; collaborative, secret, public or personal he is trying to imagine, enact and realise a new way of working together within, through and past formal art institutions and structures.

Produced with support from the Artsadmin Bursary Scheme 2018-19

Simon Farid: Segmenti iz študijske sobe za kritično in razširjeno muzejsko pazništvo

Zbirka raziskav in gest "Segmenti iz študijske sobe z kritično in razširjeno muzejsko pazništvo" preučuje vsakodnevne delovne pogoje in ponuja načine razširjenega razumevanja vloge muzejskih paznikov.

Zbirka vključuje:
- Raziskavo umetniških uprizoritev muzejskih paznikov
- Raziskavo znanih umetnikov, ki so pred tem delali kot
muzejski pazniki
- Arhiv razstav, katerih avtorji so bili muzejski pazniki
- Poskuse kontekstualiziranja muzejskega pazništva v okviru
širših samotarskih in neproduktivnih delovnih praks
- Predlogi za nadalnjo raziskavo

S pozicioniranjem situacije muzejskih paznikov kot mesta za resno in špekulativno raziskavo, poskuša umetnik predlagati potencialne alternativne odnose med razstavljeno umetnostjo in tistimi, ki so plačani za to, da to umetnost čuvajo.


O avtorju:
SIMON FARID občasno nastopa kot umetnik, večinoma pa kot muzejski paznik v Londonu. V službi je varnostni čuvaj, vpet v umetniško institucijo, izpostavljen hierarhijam in nepravičnostim, ki jih je tam mogoče pričakovati.
Kot pogosto v VB (in širše), je večina galerijskih paznikov na njegovem delovnem mestu obenem aktivnih umetnikov, in mnogo jih strmi k prehodu iz varnostnika na varovanega. To postavlja institucijo v nenavadno situacijo, ko imajo pod streho dnevno mnogo izjemno zanimivih, kreativnih ljudi, ki zanje tiho postopajo po galerijskih sobah. Ta situacija ga je napeljala k eksperimentiranju z mnogimi taktikami nagovarjanja te teme v smereh, ki bi lahko rezultirale v novih modelih skupnega delovanja, razstavljanja umetnosti in vodenja institucij bolj horizontalno:

1. Z nekaterimi kolegi pazniki sodeluje pri izvedbi
performansov in [REDIGIRANO].
2. Z drugimi kolegi pazniki deluje v skupini, ki se ukvarja z
umetnostjo v javnem prostoru po imenu »Invigilators
Research Network«. Skupaj predstavljajo javne projekte, ki
raziskujejo različne aspekte pogojev dela paznikov, na
preseku delavskih pravic, etike umetniškega ustvarjanja,
hierarhij umetniškega sveta in praks pazništva.
http://invigilatorresearch.org
3. Ohranja osebno prakso, ki nagovarja omenjeno tematiko.
Primer nedavnega dela: http://simonfarid.com/towards

Produkcija: Artsadmin Bursary Scheme 2018-19