Arlen Austin (b. 1981, Winooski VT), has worked on an uncompensated or below minimum wage basis for: Columbia University School of the Arts, Scaramouche Gallery, Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association, Brooklyn is Burning, Public Art Fund Development Grant, Daniele Ugolini Contemporary, National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona, Sweatshop Free Upper West Side, Volta NYC, Creative Time/ Queens Museum, 6-9 Months Project Space, Fischer-Landau Center for Contemporary Art, Barefoot in the Head at Bruce High Quality Foundation, White Box and Frederich Petzel Galleries. He has currently seized control of the means of production and distribution as co-proprietor of the Hanns Eisler Nail Salon (H.E.N.S.).
Hanns Eisler Nail Salon (H.E.N.S.) (b. 2009) is a polymorphous collective of self-transparent unalienated laborers engaged in the non-hierarchical giving and taking of supple manicures in temporary autonomous zones. H.E.N.S. has produced GuineaKunstRaum Hoey/Wosow, Rhinebeck; Radical Nail Samplers; Alternative Pedagogy and Left Daycare: WorkingtitleforArtwork, by Danna Vajda; Precarious Worker Mixer: a teach-in on unpaid internships, employment law and worker organizing; World Historical Sock Puppet Labor Colloquium; Varick and the Detention Centers of New Jersey (video); Manicure Your Neighborhood: a teach-in on zoning, community planning and the politics of development. Upcoming projects include workshops on Employer Sanctions Law, Joint Employer Liability law and strike fund administration.