Men in the Grey Suit: An Anthropological Study of a Species
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Dates2010 - 2025
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Author
The project proposes an anthropological study of the men in grey suits as a species that perpetuates itself through time, changing its faces while preserving its essential structure. The research is based on four categories: home, dance, friendship, love.
Men in Grey Suits: An Anthropological Study of a Species. The man in the grey suit does not belong to a specific era or political system. He reproduces in cycles, adapts to economic and technological transformations, and maintains his behavioral codes intact. He is an anonymous figure, indispensable for the continuity of power. The research is developed through four categories derived from observation, which allow the analysis of his social and affective practices as mechanisms that maintain and perpetuate the system to which this anonymous army belongs.
THE HOME: The home of the man in the grey suit is not an intimate space but the place where he works for most of his life. Offices, skyscrapers, and corporate environments replace traditional housing. There he finds belonging, identity, and purpose. It is a monitored, regulated, and normalized space, assumed as both refuge and destiny.
THE DANCE: Outside the home, the man in the grey suit relates to other members of his species. These encounters function as a social ritual where power, recognition, and hierarchy are activated. Like a precise choreography, gestures and distances are carefully coded. Each movement reinforces and acknowledges the hierarchy of command.
THE FRIENDSHIP: Friendship appears as a functional construct. These are bonds marked by convenience, sustained by rehearsed smiles, forced gestures, and strategic cordiality. In this ecosystem, loyalty is fragile and reversible; the other is always a potential ally, but also a competitor.
THE LOVE: Love is not directed toward another individual but toward an abstract entity: the leader, the company, or the brand. It is unconditional love, fueled by the promise of belonging and promotion. This affection replaces other forms of bonds and acts as a mechanism of cohesion and obedience.
The project stems from a personal experience accumulated over thirty-five years in corporate environments inhabited by men in grey suits. Developed over a period of fifteen years, it constructs an anthropological study of a species through sustained observation of its ways of behaving and relating to one another.
As I was not perceived as a threat to access spaces of power because I am a woman, I was able to observe more clearly how, beyond specific individuals, patterns of behaviour are repeated, following an inherited pattern.
Through this research, I seek to make visible this singular species of men in grey suits. A species that develops within a fictional world, yet has a profound impact on the real world.
https://www.rosarodriguezsanchez.com/projects/men-in-grey-suits/
https://www.rencontres-arles.com/en/shortlist-luma-rencontres-dummy-book-award-2026
https://www.rencontres-arles.com/en/expositions/2026/luma-rencontres-dummy-book-award-2026
