maintenance

who cares? maintenance work is mostly care work. care, as in: looking after something or someone, attending to children or to the ill, cleaning your windows, looking after your clothes, etc. as becomes clear from the examples, maintenance work is the work that allows all other work (or anything, really) to go on as usual, and it is gendered. because nothing new is necessarily produced or brought about in maintenance work, it is often taken for granted. (good) maintenance work is more often than not invisible; it is the lack of maintenance work, neglect, that becomes apparent – dirty dishes, an unkempt garden, and so forth. think of an apartment where a landlord is in charge of maintenance: when done properly, these services can seem self-evident (as they indeed should be in the case of property owners), but when you have a leaking roof and a neglectful landlord, the value and importance of maintenance work becomes rather hard to ignore.

bang! nice & tidy

Posted on 07/01/2015 by rogier

name: Isabel / age: 52 / profession: artist / location: Amsterdam / weekday: wednesday / reference: cleaning and ordening helps me thinking!

milanese worker

Posted on 26/12/2013 by marc

name: serena / age: 28 / profession: painter / location: milano / weekday: Thursday / reference: I’d like to be remembered as someone who showed up for the job. I consider myself a worker.

late night foot rub

Posted on 29/09/2013 by marc

name: Liane / age: 26 / profession: art worker & writer / location: beirut, kuwait, new york / weekday: Tuesday / reference: this is what i call the domestic domino effect. clean at home, work at work, clean at work, work at home, sleep at home, clean at home … image captured in chinatown, new york city, august 6 @ 10:11 pm.