Kaja Clara Joo ︎
RUFFIAN DANCERS
2025: Steelpipes, Natural Rubber, Silicone Oil, 2-Channel Video-Loop
“In Ruffian Dancers (2023-2025), Joo investigates the interdependencies of labor, material, and visual culture. Drawing from archival footage of oil rig workers—historically referred to as „roughnecks“—the work juxtaposes sculptural forms with moving image fragments to examine how extractive labor leaves traces across both human and non-human landscapes. The installation she creates can be seen as speculative markers of an environment shaped by repetitive gestures, industrial rhythm, and the wear of material exhaustion. Rather than idealizing labor or mourning its disappearance, Joo’s work explores how historical and environmental residues persist in form
and movement. By layering tactile materiality with video loops, Ruffian Dancers constructs a hybrid space where the physical, the archival, and the speculative intersect.”
- Livia Klein, Independent Curator
2025: Steelpipes, Natural Rubber, Silicone Oil, 2-Channel Video-Loop
“In Ruffian Dancers (2023-2025), Joo investigates the interdependencies of labor, material, and visual culture. Drawing from archival footage of oil rig workers—historically referred to as „roughnecks“—the work juxtaposes sculptural forms with moving image fragments to examine how extractive labor leaves traces across both human and non-human landscapes. The installation she creates can be seen as speculative markers of an environment shaped by repetitive gestures, industrial rhythm, and the wear of material exhaustion. Rather than idealizing labor or mourning its disappearance, Joo’s work explores how historical and environmental residues persist in form
and movement. By layering tactile materiality with video loops, Ruffian Dancers constructs a hybrid space where the physical, the archival, and the speculative intersect.”
- Livia Klein, Independent Curator
