"I will never again look at an art exhibition without seeing the wall color, the frames, the wall texts, and the positioning and precision-hanging of the artworks and not think of the expertise and often invisible labor of everyone who breathes life into it. Who cares? Do you?"
FRANCINE A'NESS, Senior Lecturer in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Associate Director, Global Teaching and Learning, The Frank J. Guarini Institute for Teaching and Learning at Dartmouth
The words that come to mind when I think of the experience of co-creating the Who Cares? exhibition are meaningful and enlightening. It meant the world to me when Hood Museum Senior Curator of Academic Programming Amelia Kahl approached me late last summer to ask if I would be interested in co-creating something in conjunction with my spring-term Maid in America class, a cross-listed arts-based offering with the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and the Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies Department that focuses on the politics of domestic labor. I was at once surprised and honored—Amelia and I have worked together for many years, and whenever possible, no matter what I am teaching, I try to bring my class to the Hood Museum at least once a term to experience the Learning to Look method of visual inquiry.I've brought my first-year writing class, the summer FYSEP (first-generation) students, and the intercultural learning COCO classes, or introductory, interdisciplinary College Courses, I teach for the Guarini Institute for International Education. Even during COVID, when overnight all our teaching moved online, Amelia and I were able to bring the museum to the Maid in America students instead via Zoom and VoiceThread, online tools for synchronous and asynchronous art inquiry and discussion.
Back then, I asked Amelia to delve into the Hood Museum's collection to see what artworks it held related to domestic work and caring, and it was this lockdown ingenuity that sowed the seeds for what would become the Who Cares? exhibition. I remember one work that seemed to epitomize "caring," a 1972 black-and-white photo by W. Eugene Smith titled Tomoko and Mother from the Minimata Series of a mother bathing with her disabled daughter, holding her with such tenderness, looking at her with such unconditional love. I remember how meaningful our Zoom conversations were with the students as they connected abstract concepts like "intimate labor" or "invisible labor" or "the social organization of care" to the artworks and the light bulbs went on one by one.
So, when Amelia asked me three years later about co-creating an exhibition on care labor, I immediately said yes, then instantly qualified that I didn't know how. Before I could even finish the sentence, Amelia responded, "Don't worry! We won't let you fail." I decided to trust the process and keep the faith, and so began the six-month journey of discovery and enlightenment.
We began by returning to the archive and again searching for works related to domestic labor, domestic work, caring, parenting, and servitude. We found maybe thirty—some I'd seen before because we had used them during COVID, while others were new to me or more recently acquired. Left alone with printouts, I was tasked with selecting some for the exhibition. I started out by categorizing them—parenting and childcare, household chores. Laundry, lots of laundry! A tiny black-and-white image by Mike Disfarmer caught my eye: a disembodied hand holding up a few-months-old baby posed for the photograph. The disembodied hand seemed like the perfect symbol for an exhibition on the politics of caring. Who does that hand belong to? Who is it that is invisible yet caring for this infant and supporting this family? At my next meeting with Amelia, we placed the printouts on the table and discussed my selection. I remember feeling nervous: did I get it "right"? We talked through each work, pushing some to the "in" pile and others into the "out" or "maybe" piles. I started to feel a newfound sense of agency. There were no "right" or "wrong" answers, simply justifications based on theme and preference.
This first session at the Hood Museum was followed by more conversations and opportunities to creatively collaborate. After the final selection came configuration—where in the gallery would each work go? For this meeting, Amelia brought a miniature model (maquette) of the gallery and each artwork printed out to scale in relation to the model. We spent time sticking and unsticking these tiny artworks on the model's walls, testing groupings, locations, and number. It was like playing with a doll house. Then, just when I thought we had our works chosen and the exhibition imagined, Amelia mentioned "rotations." It turns out that prints, photographs, and drawings can only be on view for a limited amount of time, and since the exhibition was going to be up for four months, we would need to rotate out three-quarters of the artworks. Yikes! Back we went to the original collections and back went Amelia into the archive. What might we have missed the first time? How could we replace one artwork with another one? At first, considering rotations felt like a hurdle, but ultimately it proved fruitful. We expanded our search parameters from domestic work, housework, and parenting to "care" more broadly. Plus, while we were working, the museum acquired a few new artworks that fit the theme, such as Steven Molina Contreras's beautiful photograph of his mother and little sister titled Mother Alma #3, She'll Hold You for a Lifetime (2019).
Once Amelia and I had worked in tandem to select the artworks and consider their configuration, the fun really began. That's when the exhibitions team joined in to bring the show to life. They asked what color I wanted the walls? Color? Walls? I get to choose? It turns out the walls are painted for every exhibition.The Hood Museum's exhibition designer Priyata Bosamia shared a computer program with a 3D version of what the exhibition could look like, complete with our chosen layouts of art and various wall colors. We talked about fonts for the title on the wall and our intended audience for the introductory text I was invited to write. We discussed placing questions strategically around the gallery as well. Who cares do you? Do you feel seen? Does someone care for your kids or your home while you work? Do you do a second shift? Do you know who cleans your bathroom?
That I didn't have immediate answers to all the team's questions was never an issue. Instead, I was invited to wonder, to go away and think, and all the time I was reassured and supported. After wall paint samples came artwork frame choices. After frames came the magic of the installation. Seeing the Who Cares? exhibition come to be, complete with the artworks we so carefully chose and intentionally positioned on those "Georgia Peach" walls, framed by a cascade of typeset questions, filled me with joy. I will never again look at an art exhibition without seeing the wall color, the frames, the wall texts, and the positioning and precision-hanging of the artworks and not think of the expertise and often invisible labor of everyone who breathes life into it. Who cares? Do you?
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