Hello! Today, the unintentional but no less appropriate theme is work: the work of the curator, the work of the 80s girlboss, the work of the PR consultant. I love a good analysis about how things get done. I’ll read or watch any behind-the-scenes documentation about how workplaces function or products, policies, campaigns, the ephemeral stuff of 21st century life is made (or, indeed, the less ephemeral stuff: how hospitals function or how a city’s canals are cleaned or how exactly buildings are constructed). If you’re looking for any of that in this e-mail though, I’ll have to disappoint you – we’re staying firmly in the realm of the fictional, for the most part.

Article: Renaming is about respect, published by Eurozine in June 2021
Here’s a treat for all of you who like to live in the history – museums – politics triangle! I really enjoyed this very rich interview about an exhibition in Estonia by historian Linda Kaljundi with curator Bart Pushaw and historian of colonialism Aro Velmet. The Kumu Art Museum’s exhibition Rendering Race “explores how Estonian artists depicted race and racial differences in the 1920s and 1930s”. In the interview, Kaljundi, Pushaw and Velmet discuss the specific historical and contemporary Estonian attitudes towards race and colonialism, highlighting both the complex dynamics in Europe itself (Finno-Ugric peoples being perceived as “lesser” in the strange and nonsensical inner-European hierarchy), and the fallacy of pretending that any European country wasn’t involved in the colonial project. They also talk about the biggest controversy that was sparked by the exhibition: the decision to rename paintings – which had often been named not by the artists, but by curators and collectors.

Film: Working Girl (1988), directed by Mike Nichols
My working life is changing this month, so what better time for me to watch this classic film about work for the very first time! Yes, this is a film about someone with bad eyebrows (Melanie Griffiths) girlbossing her way into a minor management position in a nonsense industry (Finance? Business? Who can tell?) and gaining a better haircut and a very handsome boyfriend by the end. On the other hand, the boyfriend is Harrison Ford, the aspiring girlboss’s bad boss is Sigourney Weaver in a series of devastating suits, and all of it is… hilarious. Plus: extended scenes of workplace dynamics! If you’ve seen this, tell me what you think about the final scene – worst job description ever, yes or no?

Books: Long Live the Post Horn! by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund
I’m sorry to all other books but this was the book that made me fall in love with literary fiction again. The premise itself was designed in a lab to appeal to me: Elinor, a PR consultant in her 30s, has to work with the Norwegian postal union to campaign against the introduction of a EU directive that would lead to neoliberal reforms of the postal system. There are a number of things that I love: the postal system; politics at this particular moment in pre-Utøya Norway; the emptiness of modern life. 
This is a book about how policies and institutions shape our lives, and about how our indifference towards them has real costs. Some of the blurbs on the cover of the book point out how strange it is to find yourself caring about such an obscure topic – to which I say that I really could not relate less and would be fucking embarrassed to put into print that I don’t care about labour rights... but I also wouldn’t say how many copies an author’s book has sold in the blurb copy, thereby implying that sales suggest anything about artistic worth, especially that of an author who consistently critiques capitalism’s outgrowths, but I digress!
The “flawed” character is such a frequent occurance that it probably doesn’t even require mention anymore – and yet! And yet. What I like about Vigdis Hjorth’s protagonists is that their flaws are neither charming nor gritty, and they don’t go away. Their lack of empathy is built into the characters as well as into the system, but the system does not excuse the character. Elinor’s empathy is hard won – and it is conditional.
Even though this is the most optimistic of the three Hjorth books that have been published in English translation so far, it is just as bleak about the moral rot at the heart of Norwegian society, a European social democracy not unlike other European social democracies. 

Learning: The EU’s supply chain governance
Speaking of regulations -- if you’ve been following the ongoing attempts to get an EU-wide supply chain law off the ground, you might have seen that the Commission proposal has now been delayed until autumn. Time to sign some petitions and put some pressure on your elected representatives! If you’re in Austria, you can sign this petition and sign up to receive updates from the Bürgerinitiative Lieferkettengesetz. 

Other: I experienced a rush of PURE ENDORPHINS yesterday when I took a break from reading my magazine on a picnic blanket to walk along a little path through hip height grass in the sunshine, so as always, my top recommendation is logging off and hanging out outside! 

That's all! Bye!