False Dichotomies

You can treat the latest offering at the Museum on the Seam as just another art exhibition – or you can walk round it as though at Yad Vashem (Israeli Holocaust Museum). Such is the power of “Equal and Less Equal”, which explores the relationship between the exploited and the exploiters, in the sphere of global labour.

Artists from around the world have collaborated on this unique project, which spans three floors of the museum, and evokes in the viewer a sense of shame, guilt and horror every bit as powerful as a walk through the haunting corridors of Yad Vashem.

Immediately upon entering the museum, one is met by the first installation – which sets the tone perfectly for the whole exhibition. Three projector screens depict film of enormous oil pumps at work in a desolate country landscape, bobbing up and down in an unending cycle, set to the sombre sound of tolling bells. The insinuation is not lost on the viewer – the machinery is slave to the incessant human need for labour, and that machinery and people are interchangeable in the bigger picture. The rich use the poor as mere equipment, in the eternal quest to milk the land of its resources and sate the needs of the masses.

Starting with the ground floor displays, the viewer will find the international aspect of the pieces soon are brought a lot closer to home. The images of prostitutes, as well as illegal migrant workers, may have been taken overseas, but are easily transposable onto the Israeli landscape. This country has one of the world’s most appalling records in sex trafficking, as well as having a pretty poor reputation for relying on cheap, off-the-books labour to perform the menial work that average Israelis turn their noses up at.

Santiago Sierra used genuine migrant workers – from Albania – for his video installation. He paid them to move concrete blocks from one side of a room to the other, in an attempt to capture the futility and pointlessness of many of the tasks performed by those in the lower echelons of working society. Whilst he succeeds in painting a bleak picture of the uncreative, uninspiring work available to these people, he is too quick to dismiss their work as being unimportant. It may be menial, but it serves two functions – to construct buildings for the employer, and also to provide much needed currency for the employees to send home with which to support their families. However, the point Sierra makes is unimpeachable – that some, in this life, are doomed to be the worker ants, the drones, whilst others reap the rewards of their toil from on high.

Ants appear in several of the artworks on display, as well as on the advertising hoardings used to promote the exhibition. A trite analogy, yes – but also one that has endured over time when artists and writers look for ways to describe the working classes. And, upon viewing Sebastaio Salgado’s incredible black and white photos of gold miners at work in Brazil, one cannot fail to compare the fate of the workers with that of the ant. The lines of miners – all hauling huge sacks on their backs – teem in the cavernous expanse of the mine, in a Dante-esque vision of hell on earth.

But, before the viewer bemoans the fate of mankind the world over, it is important to contextualise the images. No one would dispute that the life of a prostitute plying her trade outside Tel Aviv bus station is not a happy one, but at the same time, who are we to judge that all factory workers, third world farmers or construction labourers in Romania are unhappy with their lot? It is the demeaning, patronising preserve of rich westerners to assume thus – as Tuomo Marrinen’s challenging series of prints on the lower ground floor appear to imply.

In Marrinen’s works, pairs of photos are arranged on the wall – the first pair shows workers at a Nepalese dairy, alongside similarly-arranged stockbrokers at a Finnish investment bank. The brokers appear haughty, done up to the nines in their suits and ties, standing imposingly in the sterile marble halls of their office. The Nepalese workers, on the other hand, are scruffily dressed, milling around in a ramshackle barn – but their smiles are worth a thousand silk ties. Who is richer? We are in no doubt. Who is happier? Possessions and wealth alone cannot answer that question.

Amongst the many outstanding pieces, there are also several tired concepts trotted out – for example, the stamping of barcodes across the backs of faceless workers, in one photo. However, just because the imagery is predictable does not absolve the viewer of responsibility. The exhibition is more than just another set of arty montages – it is a wake up call, a lens on the poor and unfortunate of this world, who will continue to be exploited endlessly unless those at the top play fair.

On the third floor is a video shot at the Erez Crossing between Israel and Gaza, which sucks the viewer in and is as captivating as anything else in the museum. Untitled, it was made by Boaz Arad and Miki Kratsman – and shows the faces of the endless stream of Palestinian labourers off to find work across the border in Israel. Weather-beaten, time-ravaged features are framed by cheap clothes and the occasional keffiyeh. The stoicism of the workers can also be interpreted as resignation at their fate, as they make the long, uncertain trek into Israel, searching for work that may or may not be there. Watching the film, the viewer gets the same frisson of emotion as when rubbernecking at the scene of a car crash – thank G-d it isn’t me, but let’s just stay and stare a while, to drink in the suffering of someone else.

Once done with the exhibition, the viewer is advised to climb the steps to the roof terrace, which afford stunning vistas over both East and West Jerusalem. From atop the viewpoint, all of the challenging issues from the museum are brought to life – Palestinian labourers can be spied toiling on the grounds of a nearby hotel, a Filipino maid can be seen pushing her wheelchair-bound elderly quarry along the street – and the viewer must see the scene through awakened eyes.

The museum – which is a slick, spotlessly kept building, thanks to benevolent German patrons – achieves exactly what it sets out to do with “Equal and Less Equal”. To open the eyes of the viewer to who, and what, lies beneath the social strata that we are fortunate enough to inhabit – and to challenge why it has to be this way. Just like Yad Vashem lays bare the horror of European barbarism during the last century, so does the Museum on the Seam confront us with the ongoing abuses of the present day.