The Labors of Looking: Unseenamerica and the Visual Economy of Work

Abstract

In fall 2002, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao invited the Bread and Roses Cultural Project, of New York's Health and Human Service Union, 1199/ SEIU (Service Employees International Union), to display a selection of photographs from their unseenamerica project at the Department of Labor. Unseenamerica is the first nationwide project to provide photography workshops to groups of workers and to present these images in exhibition form to audiences both within and outside their communities.2 After Bread and Roses' executive director Esther Cohen accepted Chaos offer, she and fellow staff members traveled to Washington, D.C. to view the gallery space, which they discovered was located within the massive lobby of the building. This created a dilemma for the staff. Despite the lobby's monumentality, it is nonetheless an entryway, a transient if imposing space designed so that people pass through, rather than inhabit, the room. Thus Bread and Roses' staff members had to think about how to construct the exhibition in such a way that the images actually had an impact in the space, to encourage those passing by to engage with the images. They did this by having the photographs printed much larger than they had been when displayed in local exhibitions. As Esther Cohen noted about their exhibition plans, The idea was to be strong and visible in that environment, official and big.3