Sur in English

Next December 11th, at 20.30 h, the cultural building El Portón state, in Alhaurín de la Torre, will held the inauguration of the video art exhibition Catching:Hunting-gathering and emotional labour by Sonia Hedstrand.
The video art exhibition Catching combines two installations by Swedish artist Sonia Hedstrand. At first glance the two pieces seem disparate, but at a closer look they talk to each other on the topic of human labour. 
Ama-san is a two channel documentary installation that depicts a more than thousand years old hunter-gatherer job. The old women gather seaweed and abalone shells and hunt for fish and octopus for survival. The ama are breadwinners in a still existing but soon extinct fishing village community with matriarchal traits, not far away from the bustling night-life of Tokyo.
Eighteen channel installation Ukiyo Diary is a complex story of an artist mapping the party district of Kabukicho. Here young men called hosts are hunting for customers for the bars where they work as a type of contemporary geishas, drinking companions for lonely women. The hosts are the most extreme expression of emotional labour of a capitalist society where youth, beauty and personality is the merchandise. 
The labour-market in Japan changed quickly after the second world war. From traditional agricultural society to industrialization to a society now based on digital technology and service labour. With the juxtaposition of the two video works in this exhibition, that vast importance of that change with regards to living and working conditions becomes visible.
Sonia Hedstrand is an artist who works with video, photography, text and performance. Alumn from the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, 2012. Master in Fine Arts from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm 2011. Has worked on projects in Japan, Nigeria, Mexico and China among others. Takes part in several artist run initiatives and collaborations such as Nollywood Hustlers, The Drinking Brothers and 0s+1s Collective. Freelancing writer for Ordfront Magasin and Fotografisk tidskrift, as well as a teacher and lecturer in video art, feminist perspectives and political activism at several art schools and universities in Sweden and abroad. www.soniahedstrand.se