I absolutely love the use of thread on what appears to be paper. It gives the pieces a slightly messy, almost chaotic effect. They look like sketches, not finished pieces, which I’ve always kind of liked. The subject matter appears to be mothers or other female caretakers with children of varying ages. There’s a lot of extraneous lines, which isn’t a critique, just an observation. The detail the artist was able to achieve is incredible, from the patterns on the clothing to the almost demon-like faces. The fact that the artist decided to use only one color of thread (black) is an interesting one. This combined with the loose structure makes it look as if it is decaying. Overall, I like the little collection of pieces; they are unique and eye-catching.
The plaque on the wall next to the pieces says that those depicted are representative of the underpaid female caretakers, often of Caribbean and Latin American descent or immigrants themselves, who can be seen walking around Manhattan. The art itself does not signify race due to the lack of color, but I could see what they were going for. The plaque also mentions, kind of like an afterthought, that the work is supposed to explore the roles of womanhood and motherhood. That actually comes through more than the race aspect for me. Personally, I have never met a male nanny or au pair. Not to say that they do not exist, but the overwhelming majority are women. This harkens back to the idea that women are the ones that take care of the children, that they have the “mothering instinct.”
I am sure the biggest issue that the artist was trying to highlight, however, is the fact that these women are underpaid. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t due to their immigrant status. In Coco Fusco’s essay, she talks about the idea of “otherness,” in that when something is unfamiliar, we tend to reject it or be fascinated by it in a fetishistic way. Whether conscious or unconscious, people may be underpaying these women due to their foreignness. They do not see them as part of their community, and therefore not as deserving of fair compensation.
I do not believe that these particular pieces would affect any unconscious beliefs due to the fact that the message was subtle and required context in order to be perceived as a political statement. These could just as easily be simple snapshots of women with their own children walking down the sidewalk. As far as what “unconscious structure of belief” the artist is trying to change, I believe it is what all decent people want: for things to be fair and for people to be as equal as possible. Here, they focus on the small subgroup of immigrant nannies, but that is just one thread in the tapestry of inequality.
