Labour Ergo Sum

Labour Ergo Sum presents the story of Katrina, an immigrant who has come to London to seek a new life, and her profession as a digital artist is her new identity. The influence of political borders has diminished as the nation-states have gradually disintegrated, and the economically-driven, corporate-controlled ‘city-states’ rises. Profit-oriented companies care less about individual traits such as gender or ethnicity and more about working capabilities than countries rooted in national identity. As a result, they treat work as identity and have significantly loosened the qualifications for acquiring citizenship. Consequentially, people are more fluid in terms of identity and geographical location.

Katrina, on the other hand, sees London as a liberal and inclusive place, which allows her to create art more freely as her identity is no longer bound by attributes that are difficult to change. Katrina gets the work-based citizenship and she seems to fit in well with the London City-state philosophy of life.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

What if Katrina suddenly loses her job? What kind of situation would she find herself in? Citizenship tied only to work would mean that without a job she would lose her civil rights. Identity tied only to work would mean that without job she would be at a loss as to her own definition, purpose and future. This is what Labour Ergo Sum intends to tell. We would like to create a ‘utopian’ society where everyone has a fluid identity, but that is almost impossible - at least not overnight. Perceptions, cultures, power, and regimes will collide along the path of change, as will design for the future.

In this project, we used the approaches of Speculative Design and Design Fiction to explore an alternative future where one's identity is not bound by what they can not easily change, but that is not a perfect future. The future we aspire to is always in every step of the way.