Simon Gush: Deadheading

Deadheading, presents a series of photographs, installations and essay films that continue Simon Gush’s research around structures of work and labour migration. The exhibition situates itself in this moment where new technologies of surveillance, advanced automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping work and workers, bringing increased uncertainty and precarity again, while the effects of historical and contemporary systems of labour and migration continue to define political discourses around the world.

At the centre of the exhibition is the installation The Busiest Airline in Africa (2021). The artwork tracks the little-known history of Wenela Air Services, and the crash of one of their planes in 1974, which reshaped the political economy of the Southern African region. Wenela Air Services, founded in 1952 to transport workers to and from the South African mines, had by the early 1970’s become the busiest airline in Africa, flying more miles and transporting more people than any other airline on the continent. The ripple effects of the crash, which killed seventy-five Malawian workers, changed labour policy in South Africa, reshaped relationships with neighbouring countries, and impacted the course of Mozambican independence.

Accompanying the installation are two artworks that delve into contemporary lines of migration and work, touching on the relationship between Southern Africa and China. Workers Leaving the Factory (2014) documents workers from the largely Chinese-owned textile factories in Maseru, Lesotho, as the workday ends and they begin their journey home. Deadheading (2026), a new essay film produced for this exhibition and shot en route from South Africa to China, explores the invisible work inherent to labour migration.

Running through the exhibition are images of non-spaces; airports, hotel rooms, departure lounges. Spaces that might at first appear empty and mundane, but over time they allow us to glimpse rhythms of work, its movements, and intervals. In these artworks, the camera is caught in a tension between being a means by which to expose these invisible structures, a product of technology, and an instrument of control.

Gush's images remain sensitive to the possibility of refusal, taking inspiration from "go-slows": a strategy where workers deliberately slow the production line without stopping work as a strategy for reclaiming our labour and subverting production time. Premiering as part of the exhibition are the films the work of images (2026) and maybe art can retire (2026). Both films contemplate art, work and technology. They ask what work will be left for artists when they are inevitably forced to compete with the unmatchable work ethic and ceaseless productivity of A.I. and surveillance cameras. For Gush, these new technologies and tools of mass retrenchment are reshaping our sense of self as we strive to find our place alongside them. The films investigate alternative models to think against productivity and its temporalities.

Marx hoped that technological development could reduce the necessity for human labour and establish the conditions for freedom beyond production. In a time where technology brings with it further unemployment and redundancy, Gush’s artworks peer into the uncertainty, asking what forms of autonomy, care and purpose might develop as the traditional figure of the worker begins to dissolve. In this context, retirement, the postscript of a career, leads to an invitation to think about what we become when work is no longer the only measure of a life.

Text / Megan Mace