Fondation

Dissections is an ongoing event series presented in conjunction with our exhibition program. Through each of its iterations, Dissections aims to generate interdisciplinary dialogue and foster a renewed engagement with contemporary art through a multiplicity of perspectives.

For Dissections: Terms of Use, the PHI Foundation is delighted to present #theoryplushouseworktheory, a 12-hour online performance imagined by writer and artist Joanna Walsh. The project stems from a text written by Walsh that recounts her personal practice of performing everyday tasks while listening to critical theory texts read aloud. For this iteration, 20 performers who identify or have been identified as women will be invited to choose a task and a text to share with the public.

Throughout the world, people who identify as women still do the lion’s share of housework. Drawing on works where such labour is explored, such as Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Maintenance Art Manifesto (1969) and Chantal Akerman’s film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, Bruxelles 1080 (1975), the performance invites us all to reconsider the relative value of domestic and intellectual work.

The project also serves a celebration of the gestures, tricks, and tactics of domestic and intellectual work. The public is invited to simply watch, or to also participate in the Zoom performance, simultaneously performing their own housework task, accompanying the 20 performers from home with cameras on.