113

Data art, 2026

Altynai Kudaibergenova

A museum is not an emergency service that you can call up at night. But its life saving ability has long been established. Our museum has 120 personnel positions, 113 are currently filled. There are 7 open positions up for grabs. There are 113 staff who are making the museum possible today.  Of them 39 are men, and 74 are women.

Each colored sheet on a chair in the auditorium is not just an abstract position. It represents a real person, who keeps books, turns on the lights, cleans the exhibits, runs tours, takes calls, puts together exhibitions, keeps the collection safe, does repairworks or runs down the hallway with documents.

Come sit in our places, or sit with us, next to us. White sheets are vacancies, with a list of responsibilities and museum e-mail attached, you can apply for a job on the spot.

“We used three main colors: yellow, blue, and a greenish-blue. We intentionally avoided traditional gender-associated colors like pink and blue. The yellow papers represent women, so you can see how many women work in the museum. The blue papers are for men, and the white papers signify vacancies. It’s also a subtle advertisement for the museum because 113 people aren’t enough to keep everything running smoothly. So, we snuck in a little job ad here too.
At first, people thought the seats were reserved, so they were hesitant to sit down. But once we explained that they could sit anywhere and imagine themselves in that role, they got the idea.” Meerim Emil kyzy