Access Gallery is pleased to present Always Working, a group exhibition that explores the relationship between artistic labour and the politics of everyday life. Featuring works by Didier Courbot (Paris), Jamie Hilder (Vancouver), David Horvitz (New York), Kelly Mark (Toronto) and Carey Young (London), the show examines the repetitive tasks and excessive labour used by artists to activate work as a space for social critique and political action.

Although the merging of art with everyday life was a goal of the twentieth century avant-garde, in recent years this integration has been achieved through the globalization of the economy, where forms of affective labour, such as care-giving, lifestyle coaching or relationship counselling, are now legitimate forms of work that require monetary compensation.Always Working questions this shift and proposes that useless and excessive forms of artistic labour might offer a position of political resistance to these trends. Whether using laborious methods in the production of their works, or assuming the role of the worker in their performances, videos and installations, the artists in Always Working prioritize useless labour: work that cannot be “put to work” in order to participate in the global economy.