Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

  • 15 July - 30 August, 2025
  • Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Project Space

Artists: Ilana Harris-Babou / Beagles & Ramsay / Beverley Bennett / Veronique Chance / Sam Dargan / Maryam Jafri / Manual Labours / Chad McCail / Steven Ounanian / Mark Schroder / Grant Stevens / Pilvi Takala / Yvonne Todd / The Institute for New Feeling / Alan Warburton / Wellbeing Analysis Technologies Ltd.

This exhibition brings together sixteen contemporary artists and artist collaborations from across the world who respond to, thematise and critique wellness narratives in organisational and work-related contexts. Drawing on a range of strategies and media, including film, video, performance, sculpture, painting, digital practice and installation, the show seeks to capture the complexities and contradictions of a neoliberal work culture centred on the value of self-optimisation and metrics. In flagging up where, in appealing to the language of ethics and wellbeing, managerial imperatives distract from structural inequalities, this exhibition reframes the mindfulness mantra of ‘being present’ as a relationally situated political question.

The artworks address these concerns in a variety of ways, ranging from the deeply personal to the outwardly global, challenging the role of self-tracking technologies, therapeutic interventions, self-care regimes and corporate fun initiatives. From objects and films directed at the free-market obsession with performance,  to office mock-ups and digital prints directed at the health of particular institutions and the role of education, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger speaks to an expanded wellness. An expanded wellness, which, rooted  in a deeper appraisal of physical and mental health, speaks more readily to the lived experience and needs  of workers.

Taking inspiration in its title from the work-themed  2001 Daft Punk dance track by the same name, the exhibition is conceived in tandem with the symposium Rethinking Wellbeing Through Art, organised by Dr Simon Willems (University of Reading), in  partnership with University of Greenwich Galleries.

Exhibition Feature Image: Maryam Jafri – ANT (Automatic negative Thought); Detail

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