I have been stood fully immersed in one element of the 'Women and Work' exhibit curated by Valentina Ravaglia for the Tate Switch house.
Work by Margaret Harrison, Kay Ham and Mary Kelly explores the lives and work of women workers in a Bermondsey steel factory.
Ranging from portrait photography to typed daily itineraries, the collection is casual, reflective of the subjects' routine lives, almost boring and is so compelling because of it.
I have picked up a phone captioned 'Medical Officer'. Listening to an unnamed, senior worker describe daily routines and problems is essentially uninspiring yet the focus on female prominence within a masculine environment makes her words important. The elderly female officer's voice and intonation is informally and unintentionally mesmeric. Her passion for what might be more often deemed as mundane makes me want to listen. Her description of thumb injuries and the employment of a steel cap for protection is vivid and a sense of character emerges.
The women depicted are 'real' and diverse. It feels relevant with current debates on diversity in advertising and fashion and makes me contemplate the lack of representation for older women across the board in western society. I felt the collection was strong because of this.
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| Image lifted from http://www.tate.org.uk/ |
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