Presenting “Fast. Easy. Dangerous”:an exhibit about the pitfalls of platforms
Labor Initiatives presents an art exhibition “Fast. Easy. Dangerous”, free and open to the public at the Small Gallery of the Art Arsenal (Mystetskyi Arsenal) in Kyiv, supported by the Solidarity Center and the Open Society Foundations. The 21-day exhibit will run until November 25th, and comprises works of eight artists exploring themes around the digital economy and platform work. Artists featured include: Valeriya Zubatenko, Borys Kashapov, Mykyta Kravtsov, Anna Sorokovaya, Iryna Stasiuk, David Chichkan, the eeefff group, and the SOSka group.
George Sandul, the Labor Initiatives legal director, opened the exhibit with a statement on the legal ambiguities that digital platforms propagate: “Whether the platforms finally stop concealing employer-employee relations beneath a corporate lingo depends largely on public pressure and accountability. Platform work is not massively discussed currently in Ukraine by lawmakers and other stakeholders. Our exhibition is a great stimulus for raising awareness of the precarity of platform workers and the necessity of decent work guarantees for them enshrined in legislation and local acts negotiated between companies and workers.”
Curator of the exhibit Hanna Tsyba drew parallels between the shifting status of employment in the art world and the broader economy: “Platformization is a global trend transforming the work of people employed in different fields, including artists. The majority of workers are now under the pressure of algorithms that promote more inequality and fragility. We are grateful for this opportunity to attract the public’s attention to this important issue, imaginatively re-thinking it and highlighting the often under-estimated everyday work of riders, taxi drivers and freelancers”.
Exhibit authors and participants say that being an artist is often a precarious job in itself. Borys Kashapov, author of the immersive video trailing a courier’s path through Kyiv’s concrete jungle, used to toil for a number of delivery apps to supplement his income. His piece, transposed onto an entire gallery wall, renders the tall residential buildings even more massive than they are, hovering over the bike facing them.
Hanna Tsyba, curator of the exhibit, and Mykyta Kravtsov, an internationally renowned artist, created an eye-catching facade for the Small Gallery of the Art Arsenal, sure to attract the attention of the passers-by. They dismembered a delivery rider’s backpack, revealing its glossy insulation – and turned the item into a shape resembling a cross. The shape was placed on the wall right next to the window of the gallery, where Kravtsov installed a grid made up of damaged bicycles and bent bike parts, alluding to the high incidence of road accidents in platform delivery work.
David Chichkan, a renowned Kyiv-based painter, touched upon the theme of delivery riders’ labor rights most directly. He portrayed a group of delivery riders, who clashed together in one road accident resembling a battlefield. The branding and color schemes of the riders backpacks contain allusions to popular delivery platforms operating in Ukraine. Instead of the exhaust gas, the riders’ motorbikes emit the words ‘I haven’t slept for two days to stave off my hunger. I work, I deliver food, but I have no time to eat. I don’t know if I can make it to my destination…’, ‘And in Europe, delivery riders and unions strike and protest, winning better working conditions through rallies and strikes.’, ‘May I be safe today, I pray every morning.’
Another artist, Iryna Stasiuk, worked as a ghostwriter for a platform, drafting essays for American high school and college students, with a pay-per-page scheme. Iryna worked flextime, 30 hours per week, under grueling conditions – if her customer reviews or performance rate fell, she was paid less per page. “I learn the difference between American and Ukrainian education. Here, an essay means a compilation of sources. There, an essay means creative writing. So, I sell my own thoughts. And nobody knows it’s mine. I am alienated.” – says the inscription on Iryna’s artwork.
The exhibit also explores the grip digital algorithms have on the everyday life of platform clients and platform workers alike. For example, Valeriya Zubatenko, one of the artists participating in the exhibit, transposed the algorithm decision tree onto the floor of the gallery, so that the visitors would be able to slow down their entry into an app and think twice about the terms and agreements they sign onto or the ramifications of ‘allowing’ certain permissions ‘while using the app’.
In the end, should the exhibit visitor choose to deny access to their privacy and reject the alienation imposed on users and workers of the platforms, the arrows drawn on the floor of the Small Gallery point to a big black dot saying ‘Walk out of this space, close your eyes and take a deep breath in.’ However, the visitors of the exhibit do have the choice to walk out. The platform workers, many of whom are trapped by their obligations, loans, and the bare need to survive, pay rent and bills in the gig economy’s hellscape, often do not get that choice. It is past time to change that.
