Do Fish Sleep (Ikan Kapan Bubuk), 2024
Bucket, fishing lure, lighting, line, mesh wire, paint, rope, second-hand furniture, wood
Size variable

In Indonesian, ‘Ikan Kapan Bubuk’ is a question that means ‘Do fish sleep?’ In general, sleep can be defined in birds and mammals by eye closure and typical electrical patterns in the neocortex, but fish lack eyelids and a neocortex. Thus, fish do not fall asleep in the traditional sense of the word.

The artistic duo Working Hard is inspired by the sentence ‘Ikan Kapan Bubuk’ taught to the artists by Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan. This sentence, alongside an image of a fish, was printed on the Indonesian migrant workers’ T-shirts, their creation reflecting the work and lives of migrant workers who often face danger and little opportunity to rest. The artists bring forward this question which lies between philosophy and social observations. Through found objects such as mesh wire and broken pieces of furniture from the streets in Berlin, Working Hard sketches and maps the imagination of the migrant worker culture/image inscribed within the global crisis.