Javier Álvarez
Angelo Merendino
Cinthya Santos Briones
Anna and Jordan Rathkopf
Yael Ben-Zion
Accra Shepp
Liz Sanders
Cheney Orr
Eric Siegel is the founder and director of care:work. He has worked in museums for 40 years and has been supported by caregivers throughout his life.
Deborah Schwartz is Producer and Curator of care: work. She teaches in the Museum Studies program at Johns Hopkins University, and was the former President of Brooklyn Historical Society.
Anna and Jordan Rathkopf are Artistic Advisors of care:work. The Rathkopfs are award-winning photographers based in Brooklyn, NY. Their passion for this initiative comes from their recent personal experiences receiving and providing caregiving in their own family.
This project was originally inspired by the work of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, an organization that has been a leader in the struggle to recognize the rights of professional caregivers, fighting against the violence and abuse those caregivers all too often face. Our exhibitions actively support the rights of caregivers by sharing the work of photographers who have captured their beauty and strength and the importance they have in our lives and communities. Our hope is that everyone who sees this exhibition also will see all the caregivers in their communities and support their essential work.
In selecting this group of photographers, our ideas about what caregiving means expanded with each new image we reviewed. Javier Álvarez provides us with intimate portraits of Latino food deliverers; Cinthya Santos Briones helps up-end the meaning of caregiving with her unexpected images of indigenous performers who provide care and healing within their communities, using ancient cultural traditions. In the stunning portraits by Accra Shepp, Angelo Merendino, and Raymond Holman, Jr., we see the strength, dignity, and pride of a diverse group of nurses whose work is long and hard and largely unsung. Anna and Jordan Rathkopf record hundreds of volunteers who stepped up without hesitation during the pandemic, and who found support amongst the growing movement of mutual aid societies. Liz Sanders, Cheney Orr, and Yael Ben-Zion provide us with intimate images of family caregiving—replete with poignancy, joy, and tragedy. Together this group of images is about collective care, devotion, empathy, and compassion.
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