A salaryman in Japan is a white collar worker that devotes his life to his employer. Salarymen’s relentless work ethic helped build the country into the global superpower it is today.

It’s 3 am, the last trains have left and the loud hustle and bustle of Tokyo has turned quiet. Costa Rican artist Allegra Pacheco walks through the neon city to find it littered with drunk men in suits sleeping on the street. Some are curled up on sidewalks, others rest their heads on briefcases used as pillows. Only to her foreign eyes this every-day scene seems off, as if she were the only witness to a massacre.

In an attempt to draw attention to this "abnormal normality," Allegra endeavors into a socio-historical journey investigating the strange phenomenon of salarymen. Her artistic practice takes her into a deep exploration that follows the lives of the men and women that work to live, or live to work?

Through performance art, visual documentation and animation SALARYMAN brings the sensibility of the artist into the office world and questions global work practices of modern-day life imposed by capitalism. SALARYMAN comes in an unprecedented time where the stakes of rethinking our working methods are higher than ever.

Director Allegra Pacheco

Director Biography:

Allegra Pacheco is a first time film maker. Born in 1986 in San Jose, Costa Rica, a dedicated traveler, Pacheco’s exhibitions span from Japan to Europe and America.

Allegra works in a variety of mediums, from photographic, into paiting, sculpture and installation, and most recently documentary film.

Since 2016 Pacheco has been almost exclusively dedicated to directing her first feature documentary, titled Salaryman. Set in the world of Japanese blue-collar businessmen, this film explores the lives of office workers and simultaneously tracks the artist’s personal self-discovery along the way.

Pacheco’s work is included in important collections, most recently in Mori collection (Mori Art Museum owners private collection, Tokyo), Fundacion Massaveu (Madrid), Francisco Cantos (Chair in ARCO, Madrid), and Takeo Obayashi (Tokyo).