Presentation of the exhibition Ana Penyas and Alba Herrero. In a House. Genealogy of Domestic and Care Work.
Artists Alba Herrero (València, 1986) and Ana Penyas (València, 1987) present the exhibition together with Nuria Enguita, director of the IVAM, and domestic and care workers Marcela Bahamón and Diana Isabel Cruz.
The exhibition is a project conceived specifically by the artists for Gallery 3 of the IVAM and has a hybrid character that combines graphic narration and social research. It focuses on paid domestic and care work, carried out outside one’s own home, within the intimacy of someone else’s household, whether within the formal or informal economy. This is feminised and precarious labour, where the social construction of responsibility for care is reproduced as an inherently female issue. Despite the central role of care in sustaining life, it has historically been made invisible and marginalised in spheres such as economics and politics, which means that even today we rarely ask ourselves collectively how we care and how we would like to care.
Ana Penyas and Alba Herrero propose a journey between the intimate and the political. Drawing on archival material and the life experiences of women of different ages and backgrounds—mostly domestic and care workers, but also employers—the project traces temporal, spatial and social changes linked to this type of work. It offers an open re-reading of family and labour models, the trajectories of collective mobilisation to demand rights and dignified working conditions, and the motivations and life expectations of both those who provide care and those who receive it. Ultimately, it reflects on the social organisation of care.
.
See more See less
