The hands of the sculpture entitled "Washerwoman" (2018) by Shannon Alonzo leave an indelible impression. They aren't pristine, clean, or delicate; instead, they are dirty, wrinkled, and deformed. These hands grasp a garment being scrubbed by a headless, decaying figure, symbolically draped in skirts made from a cascade of clothes pegs. In many ways, this sculpture doesn't require a head since it embodies all workers in her position, engaged not only in domestic labor but in any work that is grueling, unrelenting, and often underpaid.
The piece is featured in the exhibition "Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights" (until 27th April 2025) currently on display at the Wellcome Collection in London. Through artworks, photographs, and historical documents, the exhibition explores overlooked forms of labor, the individuals who perform them, the environments in which they take place, and the marks they leave on the body.
While the Covid-19 pandemic shifted focus onto what constitutes "essential work," it also exposed health disparities between those in lower-paid, public-facing jobs and those able to self-isolate. Independent curator Cindy Sissokho (co-curator of the French Pavilion at this year's International Art Exhibition in Venice) drew inspiration from this, but then expanded the discourse blending works by global artists with items and artifacts from the Wellcome's archives.
The exhibition is organized into three broad themes: "The Plantation", addressing slavery and its legacy; "The Street", which includes workers involved in cleaning, sweeping, and sex work; and "The Home", a section spotlighting paid and unpaid labor, with a particular emphasis on women.
"The Plantation" section invites viewers to reflect on the toll that inhumane working conditions took on the bodies of plantation laborers, from stunted physical development and malnutrition to injuries and premature death. A historical text by Dr. Collins, urging plantation owners to invest in medical treatments for diseases like yaws and pox, takes us back to the era of slavery. Meanwhile, an ongoing photographic series by artist Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq brings us to present-day Bangladesh, in the region of Sylhet. Here, amid the stunning landscape, tea workers endure unsafe working conditions, earning an average daily wage of just $1.42.
A post-plantation section confronts the shocking reality of "environmental racism" in the United States: though plantations have been replaced by new homes, corporations, and agricultural fields, exploitative practices such as forced, underpaid, or unpaid labor persist.
Architecture plays a key role in this section, with investigative agency Forensic Architecture presenting films and installations that map contemporary industrial plants built atop historic cemeteries of enslaved people who once worked on Louisiana's sugar plantations.
Their research highlights the toxic impact of modern industry on the descendants of those enslaved on this land. Along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in what was once known as "Plantation Country," lies the heavily industrialized "Petrochemical Corridor." Here, in majority-Black communities, residents - descendants of those who were enslaved - inhale some of the most toxic air in the country, facing one of the highest cancer risks and other serious health issues. This area has earned the grim nickname "Death Alley." As industrial development pollutes the air, it also threatens the burial grounds of their ancestors, further exposing the ongoing environmental racism in the region. This project hopes to help local residents protecting their history and future from industrial erasure, supporting a vision of a new cultural economy that honors the dead while empowering the living.
The exhibition not only highlights oppression but also offers a sense of hope: sections on slavery and the harsh conditions of plantation workers are juxtaposed with practices aimed at healing the body, such as ancestral herbal medicine and traditional food knowledge. These practices, passed down through generations, are still widely used today.
A book by German naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian, one of the earliest and most striking botanical works created by a woman, explores for example the rich fauna and flora of Suriname, a former Dutch colony on the northeast coast of South America. Her collection features over 60 color drawings of plants, along with their interdependent ecosystems of insects and animals. Her descriptions of each plant's properties and uses were profoundly shaped by the knowledge of enslaved women, whom she met through the owner of a sugar plantation. One particularly notable page showcases Caesalpinia pulcherrima (peacock flower), which enslaved women used to induce abortions as an act of resistance against bringing a child into enslavement.
The exhibition also draws on further botanical inspiration, including "The Book of Landscapes" by Maria Floriza Veríssimo and works by Charmaine Watkiss, depicting medicinal and edible plants and fruits with powerful healing properties. The link between herbal remedies and African spiritual practices is reflected in cosmological symbols subtly tattooed by Watkiss on the bodies of the women she depicts. Natural dyes - such as Jamaica's Blue Mountain coffee and indigo - and materials like brass and raffia palm appear in these works, embedding historical knowledge within their fabric.
The theme of plantation labor resonates in another section focused on prisons, showcasing products made by low-paid prison workers and looking at the work of women serving life sentences. Work and art converge in Ibrahim El-Salahi's "Pain Relief Drawings", created with pen and ink on the back of medicine packets as a meditative exercise to alleviate the pain caused by sciatica and Parkinson's disease while he was imprisoned.
"The Streets" section begins in Victorian times, and features flower sellers, chimney sweeps, dustmen, locksmiths, street doctors, and public disinfectors, while also touching on themes of justice and riots.
The tragic deaths of Echol Cole and Robert Walker, two sanitation workers crushed by a garbage truck while on the job, ignited a historic strike in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. Protesters, portrayed by African American freelance photographer Ernest C. Withers, who documented racial segregation and the civil rights movement in the American South during the 1950s and 60s, were captured carrying placards declaring "I Am a Man," a powerful statement of dignity and resistance. Black sanitation workers were barred from joining unions and faced poor treatment and unequal pay compared to their white counterparts. The placards held by the strikers became symbols of their struggle for freedom and equality. This strike ultimately led to an agreement with the city to improve working conditions.
The exhibition then shifts to other parts of the world, such as Mexico City, where, as shown in the video "Waste Superheroes (Lxs Rifadxs de la Basura)" thousands of waste pickers work as unpaid "volunteers" relying solely on tips as they collect waste and recyclables for resale. Without contracts or social protection, these workers face exposure to pollution and hazardous materials, risking their health for the greater good of society. Meanwhile, the government profits from renting uniforms and tools to these laborers, despite the precarious nature of their work.
The streets can also be dangerous for other categories, including sex workers whose lives are threatened by violence, criminalization, and stigma. A striking example comes from the ongoing series Sistaaz of the Castle (2015 - ongoing/2024), a collaboration between South African trans sex worker support organization SistaazHood, fashion designer Duran Lantink, and photographer Jan Hoek. The Sistaaz describe themselves as "fierce activists who are proud to be trans and sex workers." Many members of the SistaazHood collective are homeless, living under a bridge near Cape Town's Castle of Good Hope colonial building. This series celebrates their lives, dreams, and achievements, while also acknowledging their struggles as they fight for access to basic rights such as healthcare, housing, and alternative employment. The involvement of a fashion designer in this project raises thought-provoking questions about how some of these materials could be repurposed for fashion collections.
Think, for example, about the advertising cards promoting sex workers' services, created by Stickyboy between 1989 and the early 2000s. These cards, typically placed in phone booths around London were a common sight (hands up those readers who remember being on the phone and suddenly seeing a random anonymous guy sticking the cards around). Like the sex workers who commissioned him, Stickyboy's work was criminalized, and he faced repeated charges from the police.
Commissioned by the Wellcome Collection, "Money Makes the World Go Round" (2024) by Lindsey Mendick pays tribute to the global history of sex work. The piece draws inspiration from two symbolic acts of resistance by sex workers: the 1975 occupation of the Saint-Nizier church in Lyon, France, by over 100 sex workers, and the 12-day occupation of the Holy Cross Church in King's Cross (then London's red-light district) in 1982 by the English Collective of Prostitutes.
The architecture of the church symbolizes a sanctuary for community support and solidarity among sex workers worldwide. Mendick's installation is filled with ceramic money boxes (some of them pink piggy banks adorned with police bobby hats...) a reference to prostitution (after the exhibition these pieces will be sold to raise funds for Swarm, the Sex Workers Advocacy and Resistance Movement). Through these sculptures, Mendick's filmed sermon, and stained glass windows, the work delves into the history of sex work from ancient times to the present, celebrating those who continue to advocate for the rights and recognition of sex workers.
You might expect "The Home" section of the exhibition to offer a sense of safety compared to the streets, but it reveals another layer of harsh realities. Domestic work, especially cleaning, is one of the most common and widespread occupations for migrant women globally. This labor is often undocumented and unregulated, leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation and in dependent relationships with their employers.
Housework and childcare have long been designated as "women's work," with societal norms expecting women to remain at home, performing unwaged domestic tasks, while men engage in paid, professional work. In the 1970s, campaigns emerged that recognized the scope of unpaid housework and the physical and emotional toll of caregiving within the home. These powerful movements demanded recognition, equality, and improved working conditions for this essential labor - demands that still resonate today when we think that caregivers, including family members acting as unpaid caretakers for their loved ones, remain unacknowledged and invisible in the social fabric.
The exhibition's exploration of these themes begins with Louise Bourgeois' print "Femme Maison", depicting a woman whose head is encased in a house while her naked body is exposed. Bourgeois highlights the home as both a constraining and revealing space. In "Washerwoman" by Shannon Alonzo, inspired by a portrait taken by J.W. Cleary in Jamaica in 1890, the theme continues, alongside images from the Paris Ibis hotel cleaners' strike and Kelly O'Brien's photographs of her mother and grandmother - both cleaners, posing with their mops.
This section also takes an architectural and interior design turn with Maids' Rooms: La Encantada, Artadi Architects and Maids' Rooms: La Planicie, Doblado Architects.
In these projects, Daniela Ortiz presents over 16 homes in Lima, Peru, comparing the size of domestic workers' rooms with other spaces in opulent upper-class residences. Using architectural blueprints from magazines and firms that designed these homes, Ortiz exposes the harsh reality of "service architecture." Her work draws attention to the stark contrast between the rooms cared for by domestic workers and the meager spaces they occupy themselves, highlighting the colonial and oppressive dynamics embedded in the relationship between workers and their employers, reinforced through architectural design.
Magazines, flyers, press releases, songs, photographs, and posters highlight the political and intersectional focus of the International Wages for Housework Campaign (IWFHC) from the 1970s to today.
IWFHC and its autonomous groups, such as Black Women for Wages for Housework, English Collective of Prostitutes, Wages Due Lesbians and WinVisible, revolutionized the recognition of unpaid care work, leading to the UN's decision to measure and value women's unwaged labor in economic statistics. The materials span issues like gender discrimination, anti-racism, health, and workers' rights and the exhibition concludes with a multimedia installation by Moi Tran, celebrating the collective power of domestic workers.
Art, history, social rights, and medicine intersect throughout the exhibition, that also addresses the exploitation of migrants through images from the Bouba Touré Archive documenting the lives of the migrants and migrant workers' movements, such as les sans-papiers (without papers) in Paris, and addresses topics like the constant demands of modern labor.
This includes the 24/7 servitude many workers experience - think also about those reliant on apps for their wages - workers who are always "on call" with no real time to disconnect. Lubaina Himid dedicates them and all of us her pieces displaying tools like a screwdriver, a saw or a hammer with texts from health and safety manuals (such as "Allow for short breaks"), inviting us to reinterpret such advice as instructions for our busy lives.
While the exhibition is not a comprehensive overview of the issue, it provides us with a lot of information and inspiration, taking us on a long journey from exploitation, persecution, and disease, to resistance and rebellion in each section. The narrative consistently shifts from despair to resilience, showing the power of human defiance against unjust systems.
As a whole, "Hard Graft" provides a compelling exploration of undervalued work and the forgotten rights of workers, while challenging the pervasive idea that we must constantly work or that others must do so for us, often with no regard for their well-being or opportunity to rest. It's a must-see for anyone - especially for those bosses and corporations eager to profit by exploiting labor - who need a reminder that the health, dignity, and rights of workers are non-negotiable.
Image credits for this post
1.
Shannon Alonzo
Washerwoman, 2018
Mixed media installation (beeswax, resin, brown cotton, wire & found objects)
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Kibwe Brathwaite
2.
Unknown Artist
A tea plantation in China: workers tread down congou tea into chests, n.d.
Coloured lithograph
Courtesy of Wellcome Collection
3.
Dark Garden, Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, 2021-ongoing
Courtesy of the artist; Hard Graft Gallery
Photo: Wellcome Collection/Steven Pocock, 2024
4.
Forensic Architecture in partnership with RISE St.James
Monument - Flare, 2021 © Forensic Architecture
5.
The Warrior's Way: Seeds for cultivating the timeless, The Warrior Builds Strength: From all who came before and The Warrior's Way: Honouring ancient traditions, Charmaine Watkiss, 2023
© Charmaine Watkiss. All rights reserved, DACS 2024;
Hard Graft Gallery Photo: Wellcome Collection/Steven Pocock, 2024
6.
Still Waters, Charmaine Watkiss, 2023
© Charmaine Watkiss. All rights reserved, DACS 2024;
Hard Graft Gallery Photo: Wellcome Collection/Steven Pocock, 2024
7.
Prisoners on a treadwheel at Pentonville Prison, unknown photographer, 1895
The National Archives, London;
Hard Graft Gallery Photo: Wellcome Collection/Steven Pocock, 2024
8.
Ernest C Withers
I Am a Man: Sanitation Workers Strike, Memphis, Tennessee, March 28th 1968, 1968
Silver gelatin print
© Dr. Ernest C. Withers, Sr.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division / Withers Family Trust
9, 10, 11 and 12.
Money Makes the World Go Round, Lindsey Mendick, 2023-2024
Commissioned by Wellcome Collection, CC-BYNC;
Hard Graft Gallery Photo: Wellcome Collection/Steven Pocock, 2024
13.
Shannon Alonzo
Washerwoman, 2018
Mixed media installation (beeswax, resin, brown cotton, wire & found objects)
Hard Graft Gallery Photo: Wellcome Collection/Steven Pocock, 2024
14.
No Rest for the Wicked, Kelly O'Brien, 2004-2022
Courtesy of the artist;
Hard Graft Gallery Photo: Wellcome Collection/Steven Pocock, 2024
15.
Kelly O’Brien
Cleaner No. 01, 2022
Photograph Courtesy of the artist
16.
Bouba Touré
May 1st demonstration in solidarity to the Sans-Papiers in hunger strike at the Halle Pajol before the occupation of the Saint Bernard Church, Paris, 1996
Photograph Courtesy of the Bouba Touré Archive
17.
Lubaina Himid
Metal Handkerchief, 2019
Acrylic on metal
© Kirstin Prisk
Courtesy of the artist and Hollybush Gardens, London
18.
Care Chains (Love Will Continue To Resonate),
Moi Tran, 2024
© Moi Tran, commissioned by Wellcome Collection;
Hard Graft Gallery Photo: Wellcome Collection/Steven Pocock, 2024
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