Clip from durational performance video Smile

Fundacion Ace Para el Arte Contemporaneo, Buenos Aires and FX19 Project Space, Belfast

Smile is a durational performance in which the artist stares into the camera, at the viewer, and alternates between smiling and not smiling. In this performance, human emotions are mechanised. Repetition is employed to signify the body as a relentless, productive machine. This work reflects Arlie Hochschild’s research into emotion labour. The emotional existence of women particularly , Hochschild asserts, is hijacked and commodified as emotional labour. In ‘Smile’, the artist turns this on its head and invites the viewer to witness and experience them.

To see full video, please contact the artist