Fund our future

The work of social reproduction -nurturing, foundational acts of care and the raising of a new generation - does not feature as labour in the national accounts. This work is essential but remains invisible in public policy.

Ghosts in the Machine

My most important photographic subject is the person. I like to capture moments of desperate optimism – of tempered resilience – that give substance to otherwise dispassionate considerations of what it might mean to be in a world in which what is hoped for has been radically altered by absurd yet entrenched notions of how we are expected to be.

My latest projects give visibility to the work of social reproduction – whether in the raising of children, in social care or in the nursing profession – as essential to human wellbeing. The works presented here are inspired by social protest movements - of people becoming memory through political acts of solidarity and amity that give material presence to the work of care and social reproduction - a lifetime of labour which disappears with each passing moment, and that few get to see. This work is qualified as ‘free’, or as low-wage, low-skilled labour and does not feature as economically productive within national accounts of the measure of the market value of all goods and services, even though it is indispensable to the running of the economy. 

These images were shot on black and white 35mm film in Parliament Square, London. The images carry forth the debate on the so-called personal problems feminists have long sought to bring to the fore of legislative change. The 1969 slogan ‘the personal is political’[i]  does not deny a distinction between our public and private lives. It does indicate there exist socio-political and economic divisions between public and private discourses through an established orthodoxy that presupposes everyone is entitled to choice without restraint and unregulated by normative expectations. The March of the Mummies saw parents and carers challenging that orthodoxy and demanding tax allocations and social safety nets - including subsidised quality early-years care and education –  reflect the needs of society as a whole.

[i] Carol Hanisch, Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation 1969