San Francisco, CA—March 6, 2026—CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts presents 8 Hours of What You Will, on view from March 19 to April 17, 2026. The third and culminating exhibition in its research series focused on labor, 8 Hours of What You Will re-installs works from previous chapters, 8 Hours of Work and 8 Hours of Rest: SoiL Thornton, placing them in dialogue with each under a new lens. The show explores how labor, rest, leisure—once distinctive parts of everyday life—have become entangled.

In an era defined by algorithms, doom scrolling, automation, and artificial intelligence, the promise of “free time” feels increasingly illusory. Now, leisure is not an absence of work, but another site for extracting value from our attention and data. 8 Hours of What You Will considers what’s left of our unstructured time once it becomes part of economies driven by consumption and surveillance.

Highlights in the exhibition are Allan Sekula’s photographs that document the automation of industrial work, particularly at points of commodity exchange such as seaports. In Assemblage made by coal dockworkers, Vancouver, 1998/2000, an altar-like sculpture that the dockworkers have made from debris offers a counterpoint. These moments of creative intervention raises the questions: does creativity allow us to keep our humanity? What is free labor? What is free time? How can individuals and communities regain their agency?

8 Hours of What You Will combines archival materials from the San Francisco Labor Archives, including photographs by Otto Hegel and Hansel Mieth, alongside works by artists Tania Candiani, Stephanie Comilang, Aria Dean, Adelita Husni-Bey, Josh Kline, Liz Magic Laser, Luigi Nono, Chantal Peñalosa Fong, Pedro Reyes, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Kenneth Tam, SoiL Thornton, and Rodrigo Valenzuela.

The opening reception for 8 Hours of What You Will is on March 19 at 6 pm and follows a talk by Carol Becker, Professor of the Arts and Dean Emerita of Columbia University School of the Arts. Becker will read from her upcoming book, A Time of Radical Imagining: California 1968–1978, that recounts her past as an early organizer and participant of the Women's Liberation Movement, an Anti-War activist, and an organizer of the United Farm Workers Union grape and lettuce Boycott.

The Wattis Institute is generously supported by Mary and Harold Zlot, Teiger Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and San Francisco Grants for the Arts; the Wattis Leadership Circle: Jonathan Gans, Abigail Turin, and Katie and Matt Paige; and the Curators’ Forum members. Phyllis C. Wattis was the generous founding patron.

Exhibition details

Dates: March 19—April 17, 2026
Location: 145 Hooper Street, San Francisco
Gallery hours: Wednesday–Saturday, noon–6 pm; closed Sunday to Tuesday
Admission: Free and open to the public

Media contact