When was the last time you ordered something online? And where did your package have to travel from? We often don’t oversee the impact our order has on communities, nature, labor markets, etc. Studium Generale and Library Learning Centre are proud to present Yuxi Liu’s interactive PhD project Labor Unboxed in the Nook and invite you to sit and overthink the impact of your consumer convenience. The installation runs from June 2 until June 6 and you can just swing by.
About the project Labor Unboxed
Global supply chains, powered by underpaid and overworked labor, link even the smallest local actions to vast networks of resource extraction, carbon emission, and waste disposal. Here, labor is everywhere and nowhere at once: warehouse workers and delivery drivers sustain planetary consumerism, yet their efforts disappear into the illusion of automation. As technology grows more seamless, it further distances us from the material and ethical realities of its upkeep.
Labor Unboxed emerges as a critical intervention in this landscape, turning the routine action of receiving a package into a moment of confrontation. The project repositions package retrieval as a site for questioning the politics of labor and surveillance. By inviting participants to perform the gestures of warehouse workers, the installation makes visible the choreographed labor that underpins consumer convenience. Rather than reducing workers to data points, it shifts surveillance into something shared – something we have to sit with and think about, together.
