Fair Jobs is an action research on inequality in labour mediation within the EU. Especially in the Netherlands the urgency is high: two thirds of the Dutch companies make conscious or unconscious use of labor exploitation. A short film (7 min.) shows the motive of Isa from Bulgaria to become a migrant worker. In October 2022, together with theater director Boris Zafirov, he comes to the Netherlands to launch an employment agency. Unlike regular agencies, this is a cooperative and the interests of the members are paramount. How feasible is this business operation in the tight Dutch labor market? How do Dutch companies respond to the call for fair employment? During the stay of Boris and Isa, this is investigated in a public program with employers and other stakeholders.



In the film it already becomes clear how layered the consequences of labor migration are. Why do people give up a rooted life for a little more money and an existence in a country where you don’t know the language, your rights and obligations or the society? For Isa it is clear: he needs money for a horse. Boris is critical: he is part of a generation raised by grandparents. Most of his peers have also left Bulgaria. What will the Dutch adventure bring them?



Artistic direction and research: Klaas Burger. Research, connection with policy and media: Francien Winsemius, FairWork. Research, script and direction (film) Boris Zafirov, Stefany Karghoti, Jesse Immanuel Bom.

Partners: FairWork Foundation, Barka Foundation, employers, governments and interest groups.

The video installation Punishment is an investigation into how we experience the future when sustainability is more and more associated with control, restrictions and punishment. What if we are no longer allowed to make a profit out of depleting people, animals and the earth? What if we can no longer buy everything? Who will determine that? And how will that influence what we produce, how we do this and how we do business? The installation shows who will be in prison if acting against the Sustainable Development Goals is punishable. We follow four women, each punished for different reasons for acting contrary to the sustainability goals. Are they perpetrators or victims? Could they have acted differently or was the system bigger than them? Are they conscientious or unscrupulous? The installation consists of five monologues by women who are trapped because they want to leave the world and their lives as they are. Because they did not see the change, did not understand it, did not want it or felt threatened by it. The installation questions what an economy should honor in the future and invites the viewer to take a stand.



Punishment is a co-production of the New Economy research group, Avans University of Applied Sciences and Peerfilm.



Idea and concept: Godelieve Spaas is professor of new economy at Avans University of Applied Sciences. From an anthropological perspective, she conducts research into economic principles and forms of entrepreneurship that care for the earth and all its inhabitants. Her research group is a collaborative social practice in which making, dialogue, and research alternate and reinforce each other. In her work Godelieve investigates how we can re-appropriate the economy and develop it into an economy of Care Takers.



Production and direction: Kees-Jan Mulder studied theology in Utrecht and Amsterdam and fiction directing at the HKU (cum laude). His graduation film God’s Lamb (21 min., 2013, HKU-Award and Winner Youth Award ZUBROFFKA Film Fest) about a boy who accidentally becomes attached to the lamb meant for the Feast of Sacrifice ended up in film festivals and museums internationally (including MAXXI National Museum of the XXI Century Arts, Rome). Also with Dos Santos (20 min., 2015, BIND, with Maarten van Voornveld, selection Golden Calf) he investigates what surrender and forgiveness may cost. With Punishment (2021), How to Become an Activist? (2021) and NUDES (2022) he examines when someone else’s problem becomes your problem, and the price of resistance is central.



Actors and writers: Isolde Sprenkels, Ine Mols, Carla Bakker and Godelieve Spaas.

What’s happening at campsites and holiday parks? What’s the difference between the way media show this issue and the perspective of campsite residents? Nowhere in the world are as many holiday parks as in The Netherlands. In the past, they were used as leisure grounds for families. Nowadays air travel is affordable for everyone. More and more holiday bungalows and mobile homes are inhabited by citizens in search for affordable housing. But living on holiday parcs is forbidden in The Netherlands. Estimates vary, but around 200.000 people live like this — on the edge of organized society.



The installation shows the camping issue in a new figuration: no pictures with police uniforms in front of derelict mobile homes, no emphasis on crime or ‘antisocial’ trailer parks. Central piece of the installation is a maze showing different vicious circles campsite residents live in. This maze is surrounded by emoji’s demonstrating characters, feelings and events people living in holiday parcs have to deal with. A slide refers to camping aesthetics.



Camping Kafka is an artistic action research by the School of Perception. Artistic direction and research: Klaas Burger. Design and research: Ruben Pater / Untold Stories and Yacinth Pos (game and camping map).

Rudelius investigates the customs, rules, language and body language of people who are part of a particular community. In Economic Primate she films men from the business world. The viewer looks at them though bars as it were man sitting in cages (the offices in which they seem to work). We see a succession of different men, who are almost frighteningly sure of themselves and their business. They explain what money means and what can be achieved with it, the importance of becoming rich, the ability of money to express the value of something. Much is said about the power that money gives you. They also point out that money most certainly makes one happy, that it boosts a man’s image and attracts women, that almost anything can be bought. Rudelius lets them have their say. Their answers betray her presence and some of the comments she must have made, but we don’t hear her questions, don’t see her interject. It is as if, even when the camera is gone, these men continue to talk about what animates them and the money.



Julika Rudelius was born in Germany and currently lives in New York and Amsterdam. She attended the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, Germany (1993-1994), the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (1995-1996) and participated in the Rijksakademie artist-in-residence program (1999-2001). Her work has been exhibited in several solo and group exhibitions in Europe. Her videos, which mostly show people in “everyday” interactions, are characterized by an ambiguity between “staged” and “spontaneous” situations. The works look at social behavior patterns as well as physical and verbal communication, especially with regard to how they contribute to the creation and reproduction of social hierarchy.

Netherlands Media Art Institute, Esma Moukhtar. Date: 2005. All rights reserved (c) LIMA. With thanks to Rabo Art Collection.

View the whole collection on Flickr.