men build and repair
2023
A home is supposed to be a place of rest, but for whom?
Cooking, cleaning, laundry, repairs, shopping and looking after others are inseparable from the mundane. Taking care of the household and its members, no matter how essential, is most of the time overlooked and undervalued. The installation highlights the importance of unpaid labour and invites the public to reflect on the stereotypes and expectations surrounding household chores and care work. The knitted graph is a visualisation of data collected in the OECD member countries, which shows what unpaid labour is, and how it is distributed between genders.
The choice of knitting as a medium for the graphs was inspired by its use in espionage, emergency war production and protest art. The book consists of small essays looking at care work from different angles and is accompanied by a voting system that collects the impressions from the public on the topic. Selected parts can be found on the next page.
This project was exhibited at the Textile Museum in Tilburg, among other students of the Textile Focus,
a collaborative program between the Museum and the Design Academy Eindhoven.
Photo's by Patty van den Elshout for TextielMuseum
Essay gathering images and text providing context for the installation
Essay gathering images and text providing context for the installation
Essay gathering images and text providing context for the installation