• 30 Hour Work
  • Anna Taina, Kuva: Vesa Vehviläinen

Anna Taina

30 Hour Week

Huuto II 17.9.-10.10.2021

Anna Taina
30 Hour Week
17 September–10 October 2021

The show 30 Hour Week consists of two separate artworks: “30 Hour Week“ and “30 Hour Puzzle“. The main work, 30 Hour Week, consist of four large paintings and a video documentation of each painting process.
The four paintings were made over only four days within a timeframe of 30 hours and they all consist of six one-by-one-meter paintings.

The show centers around the debate of a shorter work week initiated in Finland in 2019, and for Anna Taina, it has become an even more relevant topic since the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of the numerous lockdowns due to the pandemic, many people have been forced to work from home, thereby being forced to reinvent the balance between work and home life.
In the show 30 Hour Week, Anna Taina questions if it is time to reevaluate how much time one should spend on work and if it is possible to complete one’s work tasks in an efficient manner by working within predetermined rules and structures for the work process.

In 30 Hour Week, Anna Taina follows predetermined rules of the painting process in order to streamline the work. When working within the rules, she paints intuitively, filling the surface of the canvas as efficiently as possible. By letting the viewer see the painting process in the video documentation and revealing the rhythmic patterns that make the painting, she invites the viewer into the work process, guiding the gaze of the viewer in order to decrease the distance between the viewer and artwork.

The work 30 Hour Puzzle is the same format as the four large paintings and also consist of six canvases. This work was made within a timeframe of 30 hours. By using four times as long on these six paintings in comparison to the 24 paintings in 30 Hour Week, Taina questions the value of art, not in relation to size or material, but in relation to the hours spent producing the artworks.

In her art practice, Anna Taina is inspired by the structures, rules and rhythms in the working society of today and questions if structured work methods can be transferred into the production of art. What happens when artistic production is made within a limited time similar to today’s working society?

The show 30 Hour Week is kindly supported by the Danish Arts Foundation and Knud Højgaard Fond.