Who cares?!

Swoosh Lieu

A polyphonic general assembly for carers

It’s almost fifty years since New York artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ legendary ‘Maintenance’ manifesto demanded that all the unseen work that makes our lives possible be given the status it deserves both in society and in art.
However, carers are still barely recognized while the women who do this work also have to fight against sexist stereotypes and expectations.
What many people regard as love and responsibility the Frankfurt performance and media collective Swoosh Lieu calls: unpaid work. Who is going to look after others, feed them, bring them up, clean and cook and keep house for them, listen to, satisfy and entertain them? For what reward and for what recognition?
The staged installation ‘Who cares?!’ applies a feminist perspective to the economic and symbolic circumstances of commercial and private care work, allows care workers to speak for themselves in numerous interviews and in doing so dissects the representational mechanism of theatrical space. The saint and the whore swap their insignia and queer our habitual ways of seeing when fossilized images of society and women meet and combine with traditional theatrical roles.
‘Who cares?!’ is a striking stage manifesto, a general assembly for carers, a strong voice for a part of our society which is mostly silent: maintenance for the stage.

Artist Talk following the performance on 28 June.

ON

Duration 90’

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