8 Hours of What You Will @ The Wattis Institute

8 Hours of What You Will is the third and final exhibition of the Wattis's 11th research season focused on the topic of LABOR.

8 Hours of What You Will collapses the prior iterations, 8 Hours of Work and 8 Hours of Rest, into a single exhibition. In this culmination, incorporating works from each of the previous chapters, we explore how labor, rest, leisure–once distinctive parts of everyday life–are now entangled.

In an era defined by algorithms, doom scrolling, automation, and artificial intelligence, the promise of “free time” feels increasingly illusory. Now, leisure is not an absence of work, but another site of production and capitalization of our attention and data. 8 Hours of What You Will asks what remains of our unstructured moments that are folded back into economies of consumption and surveillance, contributing to rapid social and ecological destruction. How can individuals and communities regain their agency? Can creative work allow us to reclaim what has been lost?

8 Hours of What You Will is organized by Daisy Nam, Director and Chief Curator, and Diego Villalobos, Associate Curator. Exhibition design by Robin Beard. Special thanks to Wattis team members: Armaan Mumtaz, Addy Rabinovitch, and MacKenzie Stevens.

This research season is generously supported by Mary and Harold Zlot, Teiger Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, and Bloomberg Connects; the Wattis Leadership Circle: Jonathan Gans, Abigail Turin, and Katie and Matt Paige; and the Curators’ Forum. Phyllis C. Wattis was the generous founding patron.