Essential Work: Eastern European Immigrants and Models of Participation

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between a marginalised community of essential workers and dominant models of participation. I focus on Agri-Care, The Royals, and Alien Species, projects created in collaboration between Eastern European seasonal agricultural workers in Jersey and the artist Alicja Rogalska, and analyse them through a productive confrontation with theories of participation. I begin by juxtaposing Jacques Rancière’s ideas of aesthetic regime as interpreted by Claire Bishop, to Rogalska’s sculpting workshops conducted with Jersey Royal potato pickers. I argue that Rogalska shifts the aesthetic experience from audiences onto participants, repositioning ‘unskilled’, manual labour as craft, and uncovering seasonal workers as craftspeople, holding expertise. As a result, Rogalska disassembles the idea of low-skilled labour. The article then confronts Miwon Kwon’s ideas of a disobedient community with Rogalska’s making of a community, ostensibly coherent and ‘compliant’ but subverting the fleeting group of temporary workers into a permanent precariat, the backbone of the local economy. The participatory process and its subsequent introduction into the local archives, I argue, impose a different relation between permanent and temporary locals of Jersey, with the latter now embedded into local institutions. I end by considering why these participatory projects seem incompatible with theories on participation and suggest this incompatibility stems from the arts’ preoccupation with virtuosic labour. The concept of artists as the ultimate precarious workers of late-capitalism, I argue, excludes the communities at the extreme of late capitalist exploitation from artistic attention and the scope of art subsidy, depoliticising art practice in the process.

Keywords:

• participation
• Eastern Europeans
• low-skilled
• labour
• migration
• Alicja Rogalska

Notes on Contributor

Bojana Janković is an artist, researcher, and migrant. Her PhD research at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama investigates how Eastern European performance practices become a site of resistance to migrant marginalisation. Her performances, installations, and texts have appeared in the UK, Serbia, and internationally, including at Tate Modern (London), and Center for Art on Migration Politics (Copenhagen).

Notes

1. Ghirda Vadim, Virus Outbreak Romania, May 8, 2020, photo taken May 8, 2020, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Romania-Britain-Seasonal-Workers/a2b1175e1f6f4b38af02184dc25cc517/7/0 (accessed November 4, 2022).

2. See for example, Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000); Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

3. Alexander Boot, ‘To Eastern Europeans, Legal Is Anything They Can Get Away With, Mail Online, February 21, 2012, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2089527/To-Eastern-Europeans-legal-away-with.html (accessed November 4, 2022).

4. Giles Sheldrick, ‘Benefits Britain Here We Come! Fears as Migrant Flood Begins’, Express, January 1, 2014, https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/451409/Benefits-Britain-here-we-come-Fears-as-migrant-flood-begins (accessed November 4, 2022).

5. James Slack, ‘Eastern European Migrants Filling Low-Skill Jobs Forcing down British Pay’, Mail Online, May 20, 2015, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3088541/Three-four-migrants-Eastern-Europe-filling-low-skill-jobs-roles-fruit-picking-evidence-mounts-cheap-labour-forcing-British-workers-pay.html. (accessed November 4, 2022).

6. Andrew Malone, ‘Slaughter of the Swans: As the Carcasses Pile up and Crude Camps Are Built on River Banks, Residents Are Too Frightened to Visit the Park in Peterborough’, Mail Online, March 26, 2010, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1261044/Slaughter-swans-As-carcasses-pile-crude-camps-built-river-banks-residents-frightened-visit-park-Peterborough.html (accessed November 4, 2022).

7. Alexandra Bulat, ‘“High-Skilled Good, Low-Skilled Bad?” British, Polish and Romanian Attitudes Towards Low-Skilled EU Migration’, National Institute Economic Review 248, no. 1 (2019): 49–57 (50).

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., 54.

10. The Morning Boat, ‘Agri-Care’, 2017, https://morningboat.com/portfolio/agri-care/ (accessed November 4, 2022); The Morning Boat, ‘Alien Species; Jersey Migrant Worker Archive’, 2017, https://morningboat.com/portfolio/jersey-migrant-worker-archive/ (accessed November 4, 2022).

11. Elodie Redoulès, ‘Gallery: View Life through a Migrant’s Eyes…’, Bailiwick Express Jersey, 2019, https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/island-life-seen-perspective-migrant-workers/ (accessed November 4, 2022).

12. Artsadmin, ‘So-Called Law: Screening & Research Sharing’, 2017, https://www.artsadmin.co.uk/events/4002 (accessed November 4, 2022).

13. MGLC, ‘Alicja Rogalska: Citizens of Nowhere, Artist Talk’, 2019, https://www.mglc-lj.si/eng/exhibitions_and_events/alicja_rogalska_citizens_of_nowhere_artist_talk/102 (accessed November 4, 2022).

14. The programme opened with a two year focus on agriculture and fisheries; no new projects have been developed since 2019.

15. The Royals is not publicly available, but the artist shared a copy of the film with me. Alien Species: Jersey Migrant Worker Archive remains on Jersey and was not available to me; I discuss its ideas later in the essay.

16. Jersey Royal Company, ‘About Us’, https://jerseyroyals.co.uk/about-us/ (accessed July 2, 2020).

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Claire Bishop, ‘The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents’, Artform (February 2006): 178–83.

20. Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship (London; New York: Verso Books, 2012), 2.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 19.

23. Ibid., 29.

24. Ibid., 27.

25. Adam Alston, Beyond Immersive Theatre: Aesthetics, Politics and Productive Participation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 9. Original italics.

26. Gareth White, Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 14.

27. Jersey Royal Company, ‘Jersey Royal Company Video from Produce Investments Videos on Vimeo’, https://player.vimeo.com/video/206030121 (accessed June 30, 2020).

28. Jen Harvie, Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 97.

29. Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods (Dijon: Presses du réel, 2009), 51.

30. Claire Bishop, ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’, October 110 (2006): 51–79 (68).

31. Bishop, Artificial Hells, 222.

32. Ibid., 223.

33. Shannon Jackson, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (New York: Routledge, 2011), 68.

34. Santiago Sierra, ‘Workers Who Cannot Be Paid, Remunerated to Remain Inside Cardboard Boxes’, https://www.santiago-sierra.com/20009_1024.php (accessed December 12, 2022).

35. Santiago Sierra, ‘Polyurethane Sprayed on the Backs of Ten Workers’, https://www.santiago-sierra.com/200418_1024.php (accessed December 12, 2022).

36. Santiago Sierra, ‘10 Inch Line Shaved on the Heads of Two Junkies Who Received a Shot of Heroin as Payment’, https://www.santiago-sierra.com/200011_1024.php (accessed December 12, 2022).

37. Grant Kester quoted in Miwon Kwon, One Place after Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 139.

38. Martha Fleming quoted in Ibid., 141.

39. Both Kester and Nicolas Bourriaud engaged in prolonged, public confrontations with Bishop, archived on the pages of Artforum and October. My argument here is that Bishop and Kwon represent two poles of the participation debate – even if other parts of that debate were more visible. For a summary of these debates, see David M. Bell, ‘The Politics of Participatory Art’, Political Studies Review 15, no. 1 (2017): 73–83.

40. Kwon, One Place after Another, 145.

41. Ibid., 146.

42. Ibid., 153.

43. Ibid., 154.

44. Ibid., 153.

45. The Morning Boat, ‘Introduction’, 2016, https://morningboat.com/about/ (accessed November 4, 2022).

46. Erica Consterdine and Sahizer Samuk, ‘Temporary Migration Programmes: The Cause or Antidote of Migrant Worker Exploitation in UK Agriculture’, Journal of International Migration and Integration 19, no. 4 (2018): 1005–1020 (1006).

47. Ibid., 1008.

48. Nils Klawitter, Steffen Lüdke, Hannes Schrader, and Stavros Malichudis, ‘The Systematic Exploitation of Harvest Workers in Europe’, Der Spiegel, July 22, 2020, https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cheap-and-expendible-the-systematic-exploitation-of-harvest-workers-in-europe-a-b9237b95-f212-493d-b96f-e207b9ca82d9 (accessed November 4, 2022).

49. Consterdine and Samuk, ‘Temporary Migration Programmes’, 1010.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid. Brexit has had a dramatic impact on the seasonal workforce. As early as 2017, the National Farmers’ Union reported facing 1500 unfilled vacancies; by the end of 2021, the lack of workers had led to massive food waste, as tonnes of produce remained unpicked. See, for example, UK Parliament, ‘Labour Shortages in the Food and Farming Sector’, https://committees.parliament.uk/work/1497/labour-shortages-in-the-food-and-farming-sector/publications/ (accessed January 6, 2022); and Joanna Partridge, ‘Farmers Warn of Threat to UK Food Security Due to Seasonal Worker Visa Cap’, Guardian, December 14, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/14/farmers-warn-of-threat-to-uk-food-security-due-to-seasonal-worker-visa-cap (accessed January 6, 2022).

52. The Morning Boat, public post, Facebook, November 9, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/morningboat/photos/a.689701271212642/1052605961588836/ (accessed January 6, 2022).

53. Ibid.

54. Grant H. Kester, The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 13.

55. Ibid. 65.

56. Arts Council England, Let’s Create: Strategy 2020-2030, (London: Arts Council England, 2020), 27.

57. Government of Jersey, ‘Jersey’s Relationship with the UK and EU’, http://www.gov.je:80/Government/Departments/JerseyWorld/pages/relationshipeuanduk.aspx (accessed July 8, 2020).

58. See, for example, ITV News, ‘Jersey Politicians Vote for Changes to the Island’s Migration Policy’, ITV News, March 3, 2021, https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2021-03-03/states-members-to-debate-draft-migration-policy (accessed November 4, 2022).

59. States of Government of Jersey, ‘Arts Grants and How to Apply’, http://www.gov.je:80/Leisure/ArtCreativity/pages/artsgrants.aspx (accessed December 12, 2022).

60. One Foundation, ‘About’, https://onefoundation.org.je/about/ (accessed July 7, 2020).

61. See, for example, Jackson, Social Works; Helen Anne Molesworth, M. Darsie Alexander, and Julia Bryan-Wilson, eds., Work Ethic (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003); Harvie, Fair Play.

62. Harvie, Fair Play, 40.

63. Ibid.

64. Bishop, Artificial Hells, 223. Emphasis in the original.

65. Bojana Kunst, Artist at Work, Proximity of Art and Capitalism (Alresford: Zero Books, 2015).

66. Bishop, Artificial Hells, 16.

67. Harvie, Fair Play, 62.

68. Kunst, Artist at Work, 137.

69. Ibid., 139.

70. Ibid., 143.

71. Alicja Rogalska, The Royals, 2018.

72. The Morning Boat, ‘International Call for Artists’, 2016, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/http://morningboat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/THE-MORNING-BOAT-call-for-artists-1.pdf (accessed November 4, 2022).

73. Paolo Virno, A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, and Andrea Casson (Cambridge, Mass; London: Semiotext(e), 2003), 54.

74. Ibid., 56.

75. Ibid., 52.

76. Ibid., 52–53.

77. Ibid., 62.

78. Hito Steyerl, ‘Politics of Art: Contemporary Art and the Transition to Post-Democracy’, E-Flux, no. 21 (2010), https://www.e-flux.com/journal/21/67696/politics-of-art-contemporary-art-and-the-transition-to-post-democracy/ (accessed November 4, 2022).

79. Isabell Lorey, ‘Becoming Common: Precarization as Political Constituting’, E-Flux, no. 17 (2010), https://www.e-flux.com/journal/17/67385/becoming-common-precarization-as-political-constituting/ (accessed November 4, 2022).

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid.

82. Florence Schulz, ‘German Farms Need Nearly 300,000 Seasonal Workers’, euractiv.com, March 25, 2020, https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/german-farms-need-nearly-300000-seasonal-workers/ (accessed November 4, 2022).