Migrant domestic workers are Hong Kong's largest minority group and one of the most visible components of the city's society. Migrant workersinconstruction, agriculture, and services, alongside domestic workersalso represent a significant social group in Malaysia and other countries in the region. In most of these places, migrant workers'legal and symbolic status are matters of constant negotiation, reflecting the many complexities behind the continuing nation building processes of our times. The stories of migrant workers in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and elsewhere are crucial narratives that need to be told alongside the growing affluence of many of these societies in the past decades, together with the stories of struggle of what is considered the 'local' working class and of other historically disadvantaged groups, and against the backdrop of the different historical waves of migration that have shaped so much of our world.
Afterwork includes the work of artists of different practices, contexts, and generations. Several artists navigate directly the main thematic map of the exhibition; others chose a more personal approach, looking at the presence of domestic workers in households, the public sphere, and the artists' lives. Another group of artists create abstract and poetic landscapes that bring a different and necessary vocabulary in an exhibition that tries to address such a wide and contradictory array of topics and perspectives, from personal desires and dreams to historical processes.
Afterwork includes works by Abdoulaye Konate, Alfredo Jaar, Beatrix Pang, Brian Gothong Tan, Daniela Ortiz, Eisa Jocson, Elvis Yip Kin Bon, Fan Ho, Gan Chin Lee, Cheng Yee Man (Gum), Harun Farocki, Hit Man Gurung, I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih, Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Jao Chia-En, Joyce Lung Yuet Ching, Lai Loong Sung, Liliana Angulo, Melati Suryodarmo, Jean-François Bocle, Köken Ergun, KUNCI Cultural Center, Larry Feign, Miljohn Ruperto, Maria Taniguchi, Pangrok Sulap, Poklong Anading, Ryan Villamael, Santiago Sierra, Sakarin Krue-On, Sharon Chin, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Taring Padi and Xyza Cruz Bacani.