Video, 16:47
EMILY is a single channel video installation that documents my experience of temp-work within an all-male financial recruitment firm in the city of London. Employed as a secretary on a fixed-term basis, I was expected to fulfil the role of my predecessor, Emily. Though never meeting with Emily in person, she bacme an ever-present entity within my working enviornment.
EMILY explores the role of the ‘flexi-worker’ or as Guy Standing’s defines the ‘procariat’, a new social underclass, who categorised by both economic precarity and extreme adaptability, suffer from both job and identity instability.
Adopting the name as a way to personify this precarious laborour, the work attempts to characterise Emily, as somone who is both personable and indistinguishable, adaptable and easily forgettable, present but largely invisible; and ultimately the role women play within this characterisation.
Adopting the name as a way to personify this precarious laborour, the work attempts to characterise Emily, as somone who is both personable and indistinguishable, adaptable and easily forgettable, present but largely invisible; and ultimately the role women play within this characterisation.
EMILY was commissioned by Sao Roque Gallery and later exhibited at East Bristol Contemporary, 2018. Online at isthisitisthisit, 2019. And at Aici Acolo in Romania, 2021.
Vimeo Link on Request