Beats Working

For designers Noam Toran and Marloes ten Bhomer, a craft is not limited to a set of technical skills - craft also involves social, political and personal aspects, and these feature in pre-industrial work songs. Work songs are incredible, complex artefacts, in that they provide not only a historical 'measure' of the work being done -the human pace, the force, the duration of the task at hand- but also, through lyrics, convey the worker's social and political condition. Work songs also speak of what workers desire: what they covet -freedom, the love of a good woman, material goods, etc.- and what they would rather be doing -dancing, drinking, and 'drifting' (traveling aimlessly). Most importantly, they provide a critical and personal voice to an often marginalised or misrepresented section of society. Traditionally, museological representations of craftspeople and labourers tend to be one-dimensional, in that they are habitually depicted as being only knowledgeable about the work or craft itself and not about the greater socio-political circumstances within which they function. Based on discussions with various artisans and museum staff, Noam Toran and Marloes ten Bhomer have created a contemporary labourers' song for the Zuiderzee Museum.