Suzanne Lacy: Uncertain Futures Installation One: The Interviews
Manchester Art Gallery, UK, 2021
In the first of three consecutive installations in the Manchester Art Gallery, we performed interviews with 100 women over 50 inside a private interview booth built into the exhibition room. Over a period of three months, researchers Sarah Campbell and Elaine Dewhurst conducted hour-long interviews on work conditions and aspirations while the “recording sign” was turned on and the blinds in a window were closed. The women were an extraordinarily diverse range of ages (over fifty), migrant status and cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds, all recruited through the friendship and political networks of the Advisory Group.
As part of the installation, paintings from the Manchester Gallery’s collection hung on the wall, reminding us of the history of working class labor and linking that to the conditions under investigation. In particular, a historic Ford Maddox Brown 1865 painting entitled “Work”, portrayed the Victorian class system and the transition from a rural to an urban economy that so transformed the status of class labor.
In between recording sessions, the space was activated by a sound and text recording that played on the window and inside the interview booth. Interviews from the Advisory Group on their experiences with work illuminated some of the shared experiences of discrimination. As the 100 interviews were transcribed and anonymized they were placed on clipboards for visitors to review at their leisure.
This exhibition included a premiere film of Lacy’s Cleaning Conditions project. Learn more about it here.
Read more about Suzanne Lacy’s role in the project as a whole here and visit the Uncertain Futures project webpage here