The Chore: a durational performance and installation
The Lodge Gallery
April 25 - 29, 2016
The Museum of Contemporary Craft
May 22 - June 16, 2016

This performance and subsequent installation joins pedestrian choreography and gestures associated with domestic labor with raw denim: a durable fabric used primarily as a uniform of the working class. Denim is a material that shows evidence of labor over time through fading and wear of indigo dye. This 5 day, 40-hour long durational performance addresses the futile acts of labor that are reserved for women within the private domestic setting. By decontextualizing connotations of labor between the private and public sphere, this work attempts to provide a clearer link between the gendered inequities of housework and the public realm of employment. The invisible systems of labor which support and allow certain persons unfettered freedoms of creativity are made visible, and the viewer is meant to question their accountability, a woman’s role in and outside of the home, and the time spent on domestic labor.