Hard Graft at Wellcome Collection: Rethinking 'Underrepresented' Labour
The exhibition 'Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights' at the Wellcome Collection in London, curated by Cindy Sissokho, challenges the cliché of 'underrepresented' by focusing on forced labor during the Transatlantic slave trade, sex work, and contemporary caring and cleaning. Works include Louise Rocabert's series on striking chambermaids, Charmaine Watkiss's portraits of ancestral herbal knowledge, Lindsey Mendick's installation 'Money Makes the World Go Round' (2024) inspired by sex worker church occupations, and Moi Train's 'Care Chains' (2024) on migrant domestic workers. The exhibition runs through 27 April 2025.
Key facts
- Exhibition 'Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights' at Wellcome Collection, London
- Curated by Cindy Sissokho, also cocurator of French pavilion at 2024 Venice Biennale
- Focuses on forced labour, sex work, and domestic/care work
- Louise Rocabert's 'Women of Ibis Batignolles' (2019-21) shows striking chambermaids in Paris
- Charmaine Watkiss portraits (2021-2023) depict women with ancestral herbal knowledge
- Lindsey Mendick's 'Money Makes the World Go Round' (2024) inspired by sex worker church protests
- Moi Train's 'Care Chains' (2024) features hands of 12 female domestic workers
- Exhibition runs through 27 April 2025
Entities
Artists
- Louise Rocabert
- Charmaine Watkiss
- Lindsey Mendick
- Moi Train
- Marc Fernez
- Mendez
- Daniel Trilling
- Cindy Sissokho
Institutions
- Wellcome Collection
- SWARM activist collective
- Forensic Architecture
- Wages for Housework campaign
Locations
- London
- United Kingdom
- Paris
- France
- Brazil
- China
- Bern
- Switzerland
- Louisiana
- United States
- Caribbean
- Africa