For the past two years, I have been photographing women and non-binary people in their homes in Mparntwe/Alice Springs and having conversations about our collective experiences of domestic, emotional, logistical and advocacy labour. This project is centered around process, beginning with a one hour interview with the subject in their home, followed by an intimate shoot where we create an image together. We talk about being overworked, about our emotional and logistical capacities being run dry, how we are beyond tired, how the work is invisible and how, despite this, we are raging and organising. Our relief in discovering each other, at consoling and supporting each other is paramount to making it through life. This ongoing series is a tribute to the Mparntwe community who are a balm to these aches, a visible admonition of the invisible, and a reminder to all of us that there is work to do.

 

Balm is a commentary on the domestic, emotional logistical and advocacy labour disparity in Australian society. An ongoing tableaux series of images, this work highlights the disproportionate amount of labour that women and non-binary people do in relationships and society at large. Furthermore, this work depicts how this labour is simultaneously significant and painstakingly monotonous to carry out, particularly as it is commonly done without acknowledgement or renumeration.