TFRL_Soap Portraits is the first presentation of the new artistic research project TOOLS FOR REPRODUCTIVE LABOUR.

By reproductive labour the artist understands any activity, labour or service that serves the biological and social reproduction of our globalised capitalist society. A key characteristic of this kind of labour is that it concerns invisible, undervalued, un(der)paid, precarious, and ‘feminine’ labour. As such, the pivotal question of this artistic research project is how the arts, human sciences, and new technologies in media and design can help broaden the visibility and articulate the value of social groups that remain under-represented, under-valorised, or marginalised in Western society.

In order to answer this intermedia question, the research project will be co-created together with female reproductive labourers, artists/designers, academia/scientists, and activists/feminists. Concretely, by co-developing and co-designing subject-based (utopic) ‘tools’ for reproductive labour workers, the project claims recognition for fem(inised)ale bodily labour as more than a merely ‘natural performance’. Instead, it is proclaimed as a craft or job that demands knowledge, tools, and devotion like any other well-performed labour.

 

Exhibitions:
13/10/2019 – 03/11/2019 Bogardenkapel, Brugge (BE)