Petra Hultman

Cleaning, Caring, Washing, Wishing

Video installation consisting of a montage of looped sequences of housework found in Swedish House wife movies (Svensk Husmorsfilm). Swedish house wife movies were a form of infomercials that were screened for free in the cinemas and directed towards women. From the start, in the early 50’s, it consisted of information from Swedish state institutions (such as Research Institute for the Homes or the State Institute for Peoples Health) and the latest news from science and technology which was mixed up with product placements and commercials targeting the house wife. The narration was parental and authoritative and addressed the viewer simultaneously as citizen, consumer and woman with a message of what to buy, do and be. This work focuses on the massive amount of unpaid reproductive labor done in the home, historically and contemporary mostly by women, adding them in a grid and exaggerating the repetitiveness of these never ending tasks. # archive, domestic labor, the maid, the house wife, Federici, reproductive labor, building of the welfare state, women’s labor