very abstract and a little bit harsh: the labour process and the union

Discussion with Lily Jue Sheng and Steff Huì Cí Ling

© Photo Credits: Lily Jue Sheng, 2017.

very abstract and a little bit harsh: the labour process and the union — Discussion with Lily Jue Sheng & Steff Huì Cí Ling

Saturday, September 26, 2026, from 4:30 to 7 PM, at articule. Free and open to all.

very abstract and a little bit harsh evolved out of the working lives and artistic films of Lily Jue Sheng and Stom Sogo who each represent distinct generations of cinema workers at the Anthology Film Archives. In the Marxist tradition of grounding the production of knowledge in the political organization of the working class, the labour process and the union is a special presentation of worker co-research with Steff Huì Cí Ling, a writer and researcher based in Vancouver (xwməθkwəy̓əm Musqueam, Skwxwú7mesh Squamish, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ / Selilwitulh / Tsleil-Waututh) on the course of worker struggles in arts and cultural sector unions.

The conversation will oscillate between narrow to broad, touching on microhistories of art, labour, and real estate speculation changing Lower Manhattan (Lenapehoking / Lënapehòkink), the political economy of Canada Council for the Arts, the nuts and bolts of contract language, among other stories and notes from the rank-and-file perspective.

Speakers

Lily Jue Sheng is an artist-filmmaker and cinema worker working across the moving image, collage, and poetry. They have screened or read at Anthology Film Archives, The Cinematheque, the Emily Harvey Foundation, Mono No Aware, and The Poetry Project. Recent film festival presentations include Light Field Film Festival, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, True/False Film Fest, and Kabayitos Microcinema. They have received awards from Creatives Rebuild NY, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the Anderson Center at Tower View, and various local arts councils. Their work develops from places and paradigms relative to being a neuro-atypical minority settler (b. Shanghai, China) in labor struggles on unceded Lenape lands where they grew up and are based (New Jersey and New York).

Steff Huì Cí Ling 林惠慈 is a labour researcher and art worker on unceded territories. She is an film programmer for DIM Cinema series at The Cinematheque and was the co-editor of a special issue on the 50th Anniversary of Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital for New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry.

Accessibility

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