One Year Women’s Performance 2015-2016

is a project inspired by “One Year Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock piece)” of Tehching Hsieh. During a year, clad in uniform, this Taiwanese artist would clock in every hour, taking each time a picture, to show that the work of an artist is a twenty-four hour job. Counteracting this action, Raquel Friera deploys twelve women from Sant Cugat del Vallès as an all-female collective figure. During a month, each of them clocks in and takes a picture of herself each time she carries out a duty considered of a domestic or caring nature. She also records an audio tape of those times when those jobs go beyond material quantification, such as planning ahead or carrying out simultaneous tasks, thus demonstrating their inconmensurable nature.

”One Year Women’s Performance 2015-2016” is a reflection about unpaid work done by women with the aim of visualising and acknowledging these tasks which are crucial for life and to perpetuate the capitalistic mechanisms. In fact, without such labour, the capitalist system would collapse. Moreover Friera’s work evidences that in a European context where immaterial tasks prevail, certain dimensions of subjectivity such as gender continue being manipulated in order to establish hierarchies among different types of tasks as are, in this case, artistic, domestic and caring tasks.

This project is part of the Feminizing Art History series, which consists of revisiting mythical works of art history to revive its meaning from another perspective.