Bringing art to the workplace
An in-house art project is changing Siemens employees’ perceptions of their working environment.
In the project “What are you doing here?”, the artist Cao Fei works with employees from OSRAM China Lighting to turn their individual ideas, hopes and expectations into art.
The courage of artistic expression
A graceful ballerina with the wings of an angel stands amid work benches in a manufacturing room. A woman in a long robe decorated with peacock feathers dances before a house built from cardboard boxes. And a group of young men play electric guitars in a vast hall. What are they doing there? Shouldn’t they be at work? Employees at OSRAM China Lighting Ltd. in Foshan have taken up artist Cao Fei’s invitation to express their ideas, hopes and dreams in a common project.
The way, employees at OSRAM China Lighting Ltd. in Foshan present themselves in the in-house art project, tells a lot about their feelings and their dreams.
As part of the “What are they doing here?” series of projects for employees organized by the Siemens Arts Program, 30-year-old Beijing-based artist Fei talked to OSRAM employees about their career goals and expectations and their personal hopes and dreams. She then worked intensively with 35 employees on artistic interpretations of the central issues discussed. Five groups were formed, each tasked with focusing on separate theme: the future, dreams, reality, home, and vision. The employees began by sketching out their ideas in drawings, and the ideas were later incorporated into lighting installations, a performance and a video.
For Cao Fei, the title, “What are you doing here?”, doesn’t mean a distant perspective, she always focuses closely on her immediate opposite, the specific individual at OSRAM with whom she’s working. She looks at the whole person – in their role as a member of the workforce, and as a private individual with hopes, dreams and desires. “Close your eyes and think of your childhood. Try to describe a scene from it,” she tells the men and women she works with. Time and again, Fei’s work explores the relationship between individuals and their working environment, and the project’s collaborative work is frequently a process with an open and uncertain outcome.
"My future is not a dream"
A huge, egg-shaped space shuttle stands in the middle of the company parking lot. It is covered all the way round in packaging material from OSRAM light bulbs. Whenever anyone enters or leaves the space shuttle, lights go on. The futuristic egg was created by a group of young employees working on the future as their theme. They chose as their motto “My future is not a dream,” which is emblazoned on their T-shirts, one character at a time. The message is clearly not one of resignation, particularly when the same employees later perform on stage as a band, with the lead singer balancing skillfully on a treadmill as he sings. They seem to be saying that the future is already here.
This employee's pose reminds one strongly of Tai Chi, which is very popular in China.
Art projects in Siemens’ Chinese subsidiaries
Since 2000, the Siemens Arts Program and the company’s communications department have invited young Chinese artists to work on arts projects with employees at Siemens’ subsidiaries in China. The series “What are they doing here?” was set up as an artist-in-residence project. To date, seven artists have worked closely with employees on arts projects over periods of several months at company locations in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Huizhou and Foshan. The projects each reflect work in a different way – from social, economic and political perspectives, for example.
In-house cultural projects like these are a Siemens Arts Program specialty. Besides offering artists a rare opportunity for a behind-the-scenes look at the world of industry and an unconventional setting for their art, the projects present employees with a new perspective on their working environment through an artistic interpretation of their ideas and visions, as well as the social aspects of work. Plus, they have a chance to experience an artist at work.