Julia Daser
Every Mother is a Working Mother
My project, Every Mother Is a Working Mother, is an art installation critiquing the treatment of those who do care work at home, which is generally unpaid and undervalued. The piece is a table-sized apparatus that compares tasks involved in motherhood with market alternatives. Laundry work, cleaning, event organizing, childcare, and cooking are all recognized as real jobs, for which people receive pay. Yet the same work goes unpaid when done by mothers.
When visitors insert coins into the apparatus and turn the crank, the figures of a cook and a mother start to prepare food. The restaurant chef receives coins, while the mother does not—despite performing the same task. The mechanical system powering the apparatus mirrors the systems of inequality driving our society, which devalue care work in the United States. The project is designed to highlight the immense amounts of work done by mothers—celebrating their stories while exposing the deep inequity they face.
