COMMUNITY VOICE: Woman Kind

COMMUNITY VOICE:
Woman Kind

Women and the Care Economy

Woman Kind is a project by feminist visual artist María María Acha. Since 2009, Acha has worked in digital photographic collages, using found archival images and images from the internet, magazines, books and photographs taken by the artist. This selection of collages from the Women Kind series reintroduces archival images that represent women's roles in the care economy and attempts to bring women front and center.

The majority of work in the care economy is done by women in households and communities by women for little or no compensation. This includes childcare, care for the infirm, eldercare, and an entire host of other essential tasks that keeps society stable, orderly and cohesive. Care work represents an enormous, but unmeasured, contribution to the global economy.

This selection from the Woman Kind series places images of women in traditional, oppressive, or underappreciated roles in new and opulent surroundings, thereby elevating them above the "lowly" status of caregivers and placing them on par with elite male rulers--kings, politicians, and businessmen.