"HANDS ON,
The invisible making of the city"
The invisible making of the city"
On March 11, 2020, the WHO (World Health Organization) decreed the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic. The sequence of events and the advance of the contemporary plague led to a series of restrictions and the loss of thousands of lives. But the pandemic didn't stop everything. At least it didn't stop the toil of the workers building the new waterfront and new streets of the city of Salvador de Bahia, in Brazil.
The pandemic era has brought up many discussions and reflections about exponential technological development, the inevitable disruptions caused by it, as well as questions about how technology is and will impact the future of work. In some way, everyone has had to learn something new or reinvent themselves. Mental health professionals such as psychologists have been forced to quickly move their offices from physical space to digital devices and meet a demand that has increased enormously around the world.
However, on the streets of different parts of the world, there is something that has been going on for millennia, and that has crossed over into discussions about the "solid and liquid world": it takes the manual labor of human beings to build great works in contemporary cities.
contemporary cities.
contemporary cities.
This need continues to be reflected in immigration and migratory movements, with manual labor being a gateway to the labor market (sometimes illegal and with unhealthy working conditions) for those seeking a better life in other countries or cities. In this movement, many people with university degrees "shelve
their diplomas" in order to get to work in the construction industry and make a living in the new territory.
their diplomas" in order to get to work in the construction industry and make a living in the new territory.
If, in the years of Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms, professions have become volatile and susceptible to disappearing without "notice", the construction worker finds the profession passing through time, now and increasingly in the company of technological machines. The age-old activity, the brightly colored uniforms and the signs warning of their presence do not deprive construction workers of a certain invisibility on the part of consumer society, which in its labeling culture tends to classify manual activities as underemployment.
"My aim in "Mãos à Obra" is to bring a look of value to the importance of these professionals who build our roads and often suffer from social prejudice. If there's no glamor, there's dignity."
