Presentation by Ana Penyas and Alba Herrero. En una casa

Artists Alba Herrero (Valencia, 1986) and Ana Penyas (Valencia, 1987), along with Nuria Enguita, director of IVAM, Marcela Bahamón and Diana Isabel Cruz, who are domestic and care workers, present the exhibition by Ana Penyas y Alba Herrero. En una casa. Genealogía del trabajo del hogar y los cuidados.

The exhibition is a project conceived by the artists specifically for Gallery 3 at IVAM. It presents the hybrid nature between the graphic narrative and social research. It puts domestic work and paid care into focus, the work that takes place outside one’s own home and within the privacy of someone else’s home, whether within or outside the formal economy. This is feminized and insecure work, where the social construct of responsibility is reproduced as an inherently female issue. Despite the importance of care for a sustainable life, historically, these workers have been ignored and displaced in spheres such as the economy and politics, which means that, even today, we do not collectively ask ourselves how we provide care and how we would wish to do so.

Ana Penyas and Alba Herrero propose a journey through the private and the political. Through the use of archive material and the life experiences of women of different ages and backgrounds – mostly domestic and care workers, but also employers – the project looks at the temporal, spatial and social changes linked to this work. It proposes an open re-reading of the family and work models, the trajectory of collective mobilization towards a recognition of dignified rights and conditions at work, and the motivations and expectations of life for those who carry out the work and those who receive it. In short, the social organization of care.