Benjamin Francis: For Your Own Good

The exhibition is a part of Romanian Art Week which centres around For Your Own Good (2026), a 22-minute film that explores how ideas of care, cleanliness, wellbeing and “good citizenship” can become mechanisms of social control within capitalist systems. About Set in a speculative world, the film follows a cleaning company and nonprofit organisation founded by a wealthy philanthropist with the aim of “correcting” individuals deemed dirty, unproductive or socially misaligned. Under the guise of care and services offered “for your own good”, the fictional company enforces behavioural norms and forms of conformity. Combining scripted and improvised interactions, the film creates an absurd and unsettling reflection on contemporary corporate life and the language of productivity, wellbeing and self-improvement. The work also draws on the ideas of Russian philosopher George Gurdjieff and his theories of transformation, using them to reflect on the relationship between discipline, obedience and the promise of becoming a “better” version of oneself. The exhibition is completed by five of Benjamin Francis’s most recent sculptures, which extend the themes and visual language of the film into the gallery space. Read more Toggle Audio / Sound Film / Video