Who do we empower to define philosophy?
Whose thoughts and visions does society acknowledge?
Invisible Philosophy liberates and unfolds the unused and ignored intellectual potential in our society. The project gives a voice to those who usually are reduced to their capabilities for physical labor.
Every day for a month, artist duo Baltensperger + Siepert hired a day laborer to work for one day in their Beijing studio – not at the job they usually would do, but at intellectual labor. For one day they were employed as philosophers. Instead of working on somebody else’s vision, they were confronted with their own thoughts, visions, utopias, and their personal philosophy of life.
Fifteen of these philosophical writings are published in this book. They offer a multitude of ways to see the world and its cultural interpretations. These philosophical texts are written by Beijing’s day laborers, but they also examine the global phenomenon of people migrating to the metropolises in efforts to support themselves and their families and to establish a better future.


Aside from the philosophical writings, this book also includes relevant, contextualizing texts by:
– Xu Wenwen, Journalist Shanghai Daily
– Matthias Messmer, PhD, author and photographer
– Prof. Dr. Dorothee Richter, curator, author, and filmmaker
– Prof. Dr. Jörg Huber, professor for Aesthetic and Theory
– Stefan Baltensperger + David Siepert