Healing Homo-Economicus

Healing Homo-Economicus, 2018

Digital Stills, each 60cm x 40cm

This photo series is inspired by André Breton’s Surrealist Manifestos. Influenced by Marx’s concept of alienation, Breton saw that in modern society the suppression of our inner desires for the sake of our exterior reality brought unhappiness. Having consented to sell ourselves as labour, we have become separated from our own human nature – our own interests and emotional connections with ourselves and others. A ‘vast modesty’ has become our lot (Breton 1924).

This series of photographic self-portraits explores the alienation that results from wage labour. Taken at work, before I left my academic career to pursue my art practice, it was inspired by conversations with my colleagues about what they would rather be doing but, for the sake of ‘productivity,’ were asked to leave at the door. Photographed in my office, the images seek to playfully bring the tensions between these visible and hidden aspects of our lives into view.