LAUNDRY SERVICE

Installation

print on Colour Catcher

cm 20 x 300 (30 elements)

2013 - 2021

With this installation we are called to reflect on the changes in contemporary society, from the use of new technologies to the social status of women. The images, printed by inkjet, portray women of the past while they carry out the work of laundresses, shown on an innovative paper support capable of retaining the loss of color of the fabrics during washing in the washing machine. It is a game of contrasting roles, evolved in a relatively short time. The modern washing machine slowly began to spread in the '50s, replacing an ancient profession, almost exclusively for women: that of the laundress. Their hard and scarcely remunerative job was divided into three distinct figures: the river laundresses, who practiced their trade mainly along the streams; the home laundresses, who went to the families that required their services; and the laundresses who practiced their trade in public wash-houses. The dirty clothes, collected from the noble houses by the laundresses themselves, was carried to the wash-house on the strong shoulders of the women, in jute sacks marked with colored ribbons: one color for each family owner. In fact, it would have been useless to write the names and surnames on the bags themselves, since the washerwomen were for the vast majority illiterate. When the bags to be transported were too many or too heavy, the woman helped herself with a small wooden cart, similar to the wheelbarrows with which children play.