Exile Is A Hard Job is an installation of a series of ephemeral posters of immigrants painted with the slogan ‘C'est un dur métier que l'exil’ (‘Exile is a hard job’), an ongoing project that Nil Yalter began in 1975. Exile is a Hard Job contemplates the often difficult experience of being an ignored and ostracised immigrant in a foreign land. The title of the work is taken from a poem by Nâzım Hikmet, an important Turkish poet who spent many years in exile in Russia.

To date, Exile Is A Hard Job has been shown in New York, Valencia, Metz, Mumbai, Vienna, Istanbul, Tunis, Brussels and Cologne. In April 2024, while her work was being exhibited in Venice, she was awarded a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the Venice Biennale.