As a single working parent, my mother always relied on domestic help from other women when I was growing up. These women, often referred to as ‘almost a part of the family’, for years lived in our house, they fed and bathed us, women who I learned from, who I carry memories of, are not in any of my childhood photographs.

This made me reflect on, and research the invisibility of domestic work, the gendered division of labour, and the visual representations of the family. With this in mind, I decided to recreate my own history by reinscribing the presence of these workers who were once effectively, and affectively, part of my life, onto my childhood photos. 

NOT IN ( visible ) consists of six photographs rescued from my family albums, altered by hand, using collage and stitching techniques to include the figure of the domestic worker in order to reconstruct a ‘real version’ of memory – or representation of the past.

The process of doing everything by hand, an important choice here, focus on the relationship between form and meaning, mixing meaning and feeling. It reflects the labour, the long working hours, the time-consuming job, and it becomes part of the outcome.

The tablecloth is used for it is an object that occupies a prominent place in my memory, and because the dining table is highly symbolic since it is the place where the family sits for their meals, but it is usually denied to the domestic worker.

I believe this work is not only about my family’s story, it is also a way of thinking about the social through the personal, and therefore I hope it can contribute to re-shape collective memory, challenging the invisibility of domestic work.