© 2013-2023 Sue Jeong Ka

Alison & Pauline, 2015-2016

Video contract

Commissioned by Old Stone House of Brooklyn for the exhibition, In Search of One City: Sensing (In)equality
Curated by Katherine Gressel

Alison & Pauline is an implied-in-fact contract in an audio-visual format. It reveals the reality of unwritten agreements for domestic work between immigrants (both documented and non documented) and the U.S. citizens. This piece is comprised of four parts. The intro and Part 1 show the relationship between an employer and employee through legalese, dialogues, and performative visual cues. Through these, the personal work relationship between the two females in a private space to beg a question like what quality makes female household work skilled labor? In Part 2, I executed re-enactment performances in accordance to the employment contract's clauses, '5. Job responsibilities: Promised Actions and Services' at the Old Stone House. This part reflects Ranciere's claim that “an artistic intervention can be political by modifying the visible, the ways of perceiving it and expressing it, of experiencing it as tolerable or intolerable." Intermission: Compromise between the women is enacted in the footage between Part 1 and 2. This does not belong to the actual contract, but presents an inevitable dialogue illustrating their personal and cultural experiences through their long term work relationship.

This video contract was developed through a collaboration between the artist and Alison and Pauline, and reviewed by Michele Gover, Esq; Ann Marie Puente, Esq.; Shevaun Wright, Esq. (and artist); Chan Kim, J.D.