Mono Men goes international! For the very first time, the multivideo installation by Simone Mudde and Olivier van Breugel is on show abroad. Mono Men is shown at the Benaki Museum during the 30th Athens Photo Festival in Greece.
Athens Photo Festival is the leading international festival of photography and related media in Southeastern Europe. The festival attempts to bring together a range of different perspectives from emerging and established artists and photographers from all over the world with the aim to raise awareness and foster an understanding of contemporary culture and society through photography in all its forms.
Athens Photo Festival shows 85 emerging and established artists from 30 countries. The exhibition programme is divided into thematic sections, striving to create a dialogue between different thematic ideas, woven into one whole. Mono Men is part of the group exhibition about Role Play.
Mono Men – Guardians of Time is a series of monumental videos about endlessness, boredom and dedication.
Security guards at construction sites, they are everywhere in Tokyo. Come rain or shine, they are always there. Their perseverance is as absurd as it is admirable.
The age of teinen, the Japanese word for retirement, is 62. However, retiring in Japan does not mean the same thing as in Europe. Teinen marks the end of ‘lifetime employment’ but not a complete withdrawal from the labour force. This transitional arrangement is designed to free up jobs for younger workers.
What’s more, if you have spent your entire career working six days a week and most of your social life has revolved around work, retirement is akin to social isolation.
Saitoffinal, Mono Men
© Mudde & Van Breugel
© Mudde & Van Breugel
Guard at night, Mono Men
© Mudde & Van Breugel
© Mudde & Van Breugel
Still from Mono Men
© Mudde & Van Breugel
© Mudde & Van Breugel
Still from Mono Men
© Mudde & Van Breugel
© Mudde & Van Breugel