Wonder Workers by Alan Michael is a series of paintings from photographs that look blurry and like they are taken at random.

Capitalist reality usually presents three options: fight, flight or freeze. The more moderate version of the latter, dissociation, is a mental process of disconnecting from one’s own feelings and surroundings. Magically, the world turns into alienating art. Everything is now and very inaccessible. It can last for hours and years.

Social Capital is this association between people that creates upward mobility for some. In the emotional vacuum of dissociation, social mobility loses its direction too. You dissociate from normative life goals, push away from stability and feel the pull towards stressors. The highs and lows of meeting your deadlines and your anxious obsession with detail is turning into an emotional addiction. Eventually, you find yourself lost in the corridors of life. You have to check yourself. What type of Wonder Worker am I? In these dark moments, you must remind yourself: Art making is real!

– Sidsel Meineche Hansen