Frida Klingberg

Place: SAUNABAD,
Rykestraße 10. Mo–Sa 15–24 h, So 12–24 h, Eintritt \ Entry 8 Euro*

Sauna für Arbeitslose is an art project that creates a space for sharing knowledge on social and political environments organized by the ideologies of work. Interrogating and staging three common positions a person can attain in society – employer, employee, and unemployed – two groups of three unemployed persons are employed for having a sauna together. The sauna is a space for relaxation, purification and physical exhaustion but also offers an opportunity for confidant conversations. The job assignment is to sweat and share a conversation about personal experiences and knowledge on the society gained from “being unemployed”. The conversations are recorded and the sweat—a well-known metaphor for hard work and a physical product of labor—is collected on towels.

In September 2016 Sauna für Arbeitslose was realized in Berlin in the frame of Undisciplinary Learning: CITY and in collaboration with Saunabad. The record of the intellectual and physical labor produced by the participants – conversations and sweat collected in towels – built the basis for the site-specific installation at the reading room of the sauna, that can be visited until 19 November.

Frida Klingberg’s interest lies in finding new ways to derive stories from unrepresented positions. Her work aims to initiate exchange on personal experiences and structures that conduce a demand for non-hierarchal ethics. Sauna for the unemployed is a process-based art project that was first realized in Sweden in 2014-2015. The installation resulting from this first edition is on view in the exhibition Undisciplinary Learning: SPACE at District.