Description: This video film is a collage, consisting of footage filmed in a modern British factory, archival material and fragments from some classical films, such as Metropolis (Fritz Lang) and The Man with the movie camera (Dziga Vertov).
The film was a part of Olga Jurgenson’s installation Go West! at Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, which was a culmination of more than 2 years research on life and work of migrant workers from Eastern Europe by her.
Pop music in the factory environment is common. While manufacturing and food packing workers have to listen to this music, broadcast with the aim of increasing productivity; dancing, singing and eating would be inappropriate in this environment. Within the exhibition Go West! the audience was invited to sing and dance along with the karaoke video projection, whilst simultaneously hearing the noise of working machines from the film Glory to Capitalism!, which was projected in the same space.
Olga Jürgenson Olga Jürgenson is a multidisciplinary artist, working and exhibiting internationally. Her most recent diverse and multilayered projects comment on humankind’s past and present to propose visions of our ‘utopian’ future; they offer female perspectives on the legacy of Russian Cosmists and their followers, applying aspects of the Human Condition to their theories.
Olga was a participant in significant group exhibitions globally, including 56th Venice Biennial, MANIFESTA 10, Liverpool, Moscow and Ural biennials. She was awarded numerous grants and awards from several European foundations, in 2011 was nominated for Kandinsky Prize (Moscow, Russia). Some of her recent solo exhibitions were at the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia (2013), New Hall Art Collection, University of Cambridge, UK (2014), Espronceda Centre for Arts and Culture, Barcelona, Spain (2018).
Olga's works are in state and private collections across the world, including The State Russian Museum, National Centre for Contemporary Art (Russia), Oulu Art Museum (Finland), The University of Cambridge (UK). Olga curated the National Pavilion of Mauritius at the 57th Venice Biennale, she advises on the art programme at Pushkin House in London (UK).
