Wife Swap (2017) looks humorously at the struggles of a creative in a corporate environment.
Drawing from the popular 2000's reality television show of the same name, whereby two families from wildly different backgrounds swap wives, therefore opening up new perspectives and ways of seeing the world (hopefully).
With this in mind the Wife Swap draws out narratives and anecdotal experiences of working at a debt collector for almost two years. All while sitting at the desk of someone else, where the previous occupant (full time/ day shift worker) is allowed but one (1) personal effect on their desk within this co-working environment. This personal effect, is most often a framed family portrait, shot in a studio, staged and guided by the cues of a photographer.
Wife Swap imagines becoming part of this framed (1) personal effect to make sense of impermanency, precariousness and existential struggles in unfamiliar, corporate territory, while imagining what the my own personal effect may be.
Which, here it is speculated, that it could possibly be one (1) single cigarette butt. As I was addicted to smoking to get me through working in such a horrible work environment.
This work was shown as part of Pure Contemplation Without Knowledge 9 at Nyisztor Studio in September 2017, displaying the video slides on a digital photoframe.
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