Visible Labor | working body is a project of Amber Davis Tourlentes and Nita Sturiale.

With this web site, we are working to grow a community of interested persons and ideas around the topics of parenthood, the valuation of care-taking labor, breastfeeding, and hormones.

More babies were born in 2007 than any other point in history in the United States. We hope to present our exhibit in an urban gallery in Boston, amidst a sampling of this baby boom. Boston boasts a diverse urban population, in a relatively small city, with a large medical and creative economy workforce, that has kids!  We are curious about class, gender and labor and how this matrix is seen and unseen in and around a local community, research, and representations of the working body.  We are seeking a location that is at street level, in a busy city center, nearby markets and domestic activity, and accessible to both passers-by and invited guests.

We are working towards a traveling exhibit that includes interactive installation, projections of online activity, photographic works on the wall, visiting experts from the field of science and research, and educational resources.  It will transform the host space in a way that we believe is unique and welcoming.  It will make visible parenting as a form of
undervalued labor, and parents, as not merely a demographic, but a group who most need interactivity (sharing of information, experiences and resources).

Art as Life is a mode of cultural production that Amber and Nita both practice and feel strongly about and hope to bridge notions of screen-based art, documentary photography, feminism/gender politics, subjectivity and urban culture. How can gentrified locations in our urban centers, that began as reclaimed cultural hubs by artists and counterculture (feminism, queer, peace movements), continue to respond to the needs of consumers and producers?  What is community for the working parent - in the domestic, electronic, medical, and corporate sphere?

Project Proposal

Overview

A recent survey by salary.com estimates a mother’s work is worth $117,000 per year¹ yet many women feel disenfranchised, under appreciated, unrealized, and alienated. Two Boston mothers, Amber Davis Tourlentes and Nita Sturiale have recently been exploring issues of family, contemporary motherhood and society - in both art and life - and have intertwined their work to create Visible Labor | Working Bodies.

Visible Labor | Working Bodies asks the audience to consider the nature of work, sustenance and care-taking. What does it means to be productive, efficient and to sustain life – literally? Through research, aesthetics, humor, practical advice and education, this project hopes to expand the conception of the way bodies are conditioned by the work of care-taking and the way this work is valued by society.

The collaboration includes a gallery exhibit of 2D and interactive work, social networking web tools, educational resources, and catalog. With images of working-class Sicilian women and nursing mothers pumping at work, the artists string together the public and private lives of half the world’s workforce. Additionally, the project explores the hormonal changes that occur within the bodies of mothers, fathers, adoptive parents, and unrelated childcare providers.

This project descends from the work of second-wave feminist artists (Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Mary Kelly are two examples) of the late 70’s and early 80’s in order to highlight how conditions have changed (or not changed) over time. How has the conversation shifted, been buried, reinterpreted, re-desired, re-imagined?

Extended Description

Visible Labor | Working Bodies combines the work and life of two artists who are also both mothers of small children. Within the last year, both artists have been exploring themes of motherhood, the invisibility of domestic labor, access to power, multi-tasking, the chemical basis of production, and the nature of work itself. For this project, they have combined two independent tracks as well as created new work. Nita’s Pietre Preziose poster series and Amber’s Expressing at Work photo series is the visual foundation for the show.

Visible Labor | Working Bodies includes a gallery exhibit of 2D framed images; a “Hormone Bar” where visitors can get a food-based hormone cocktail according to their needs/desires; a lounge area with educational resources; a daily consultation hour in the gallery where visitors can talk one on one with doctors, therapists, nurses, scholars, etc; and a catalog with a guest writer in the field of women’s issues and/or the nature of work. Additionally, during the span of the show the artists will visit a birthing center and interview new mothers regarding their thoughts on motherhood and working. The transcripts of these interviews will be posted on the exhibit blog and projected on the gallery walls. Each component is further explained below:

· 2D images - Nita’s Pietre Preziose is both performative and visual – it documents 12 Sicilian women as they receive gemstone necklace gifts, each with a different hormone assigned. Nita is creating posters that honor these 12 women, the gems they wear, and hormones that characterize their personalities.

· Amber’s Expressing At Work series spies on women as they attempt to do the impossible – work AND nurse. Where do they find the space and time in their days to pump? Do their colleagues know? Are their efforts supported by the institution and colleagues? Are non-nursing mothers supported similarly? How many hours away from a young infant does it take to change one’s hormonal chemistry? (Amber is actively seeking models - contact her at amber at amberdavisphotographer dot com

Together these image series give the audience a glimpse into the lives of a selection of women that represent care-takers everywhere. These images will be pigmented photographic prints, roughly 30” x 40”, printed on acid-free rag paper, and framed and mounted on aluminum under plexi-glass.

· Interactive “Hormone Bar” – this component is a humorous effort to educate the audience on the chemical basis of their behavior and productivity levels. The bar will provide information about hormones important to female reproduction & lactation. It will also offer food and beverages that have been proven to increase or decrease the amounts of these hormones in the body. Participants can create cocktails based on their self-described needs and desires. Having a low testosterone day? Have a mango dipped in chocolate for a boost. Feeling unloved? Have some vanilla-estrogen tea for that warm and cozy hug. This bar will have a similar aesthetic to an Oxygen bar and may include aromatherapy infused oxygen inhalants.

· Lounge area with educational resources – this will be a comfortable are to sit, to feed one’s children, read a magazine, talk, play with blocks. A coffee table will offer books, magazines and resources that address issues relevant to the exhibit.

· Daily consultation hour with gallery Resident – Visitors will be able to talk one on one with doctors, therapists, nurses, scholars, lactation consultants, etc. for one hour each day of the exhibit.

· Catalog - with a guest writer in the field of women’s issues and/or the nature of work. It will include a selection of the photo images, artist statements written by the artists and educational resources.

· Exhibit Blog projection - during the span of the show the artists will visit a birthing center and interview new mothers regarding their thoughts on motherhood and working. The transcripts of these interviews will be posted on the exhibit Blog while the RSS feed will be simultaneously projected onto the gallery wall.

Project Goals

The artists believe this project will make visible the complexities of motherhood, the nature of domestic work and the shared concerns of all those that engage in taking care of others. They feel that, though there has been some progress, the work of mothers (and motherly work by others) has continued to be excluded from mainstream dialog and demands special attention. This artwork targets care-takers everywhere but will be focus on the neighborhood around the gallery space. The exhibit will attract locals into the gallery space by providing a comfortable place to hang out, to talk, to seek advice and relax. Local publicity will happen through word of mouth, postering, announcements in community centers, online communities, mothers groups, and toy stores. We hope to extend the conversation beyond the local via our online social networking tools as well as with contacts with women’s advocacy groups (Women’s Caucus for the Arts, The Feminist Art Project, and the Association for Research on Mothering).

How can the gallery be accessible again and again (like a frequently visited coffee shop) with the same desire for connecting and reclaiming control of one’s life within a stressed and pluralistic community? How can an art be used to provide practical knowledge about how ones biology interfaces with the realities of modern life? Davis-Tourlentes and Sturiale are inspired by the inclusivity that Merle Laderman Ukeles insisted upon in her Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969³. After child-birth in 1968, Ukeles became a mother/maintenance worker and fell out of the picture of the avant-garde. In a rage, she wrote the manifesto, applied equally to the home, all kinds of service work, the urban environment, and the sustenance of the earth itself. She viewed the Manifesto as “a world vision and a call for revolution for the workers of survival who could, if organized, reshape the world.”

The intention for this project is to be a contemporary call to action to recognize the dynamic link between a society’s productivity, efficiency and creativity AND a respect for and understanding of our bodies, the work of childcare, and the hormonal basis of our behavior.