Dear Mr Zuckerberg

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg is a one-way dialogue between Jeremy Hutchison and Mark Zuckerberg. The correspondence takes place via the artist’s channels on Facebook and Instagram – the social media platforms owned by the tech billionaire. In Hutchison’s short communications, he references personal anecdotes alongside global crises, as if writing to a distant acquaintance. In moments of collegiality, he acknowledges the similarities between Zuckerberg’s life and his own. Each is white, male and privileged. Each is quarantined at home with his kids. Each is protected from the chaos of the outside world. In these moments of identification, the artist grapples with what he calls his own “entanglement with histories of white male power.” But the formality of his address also hints at the hierarchy between them. Considering that Zuckerberg’s companies generate revenue from their users’ online labor, Hutchison could be considered an employee, dutifully reporting to work. In recent posts, his letters appear with short animations of Zuckerberg’s face, presented on maquettes. While the letters humanize Zuckerberg, imagining him as simply another human being, the animations present him as a symbol—an icon of wealth and power. This ongoing work acknowledges the trap set up by social media. It is a business model that relies on the commodification of the self: experience, expression and identit