My experience as a volunteer and later an intern at Niffo Gallery / Recycle Studio – a gallery with a societal and educational function for the Afrikaanderwijk in Rotterdam – sparked my interest in the worth commonly ascribed to ‘reproductive’ tasks such as cleaning, grocery shopping and welcoming visitors in the cultural, care and service sectors. It made me wonder how MBO care and service interns look at and value such tasks. What does it mean for them to be trained in and assessed on everyday labour that is invisible and undervalued?

In this research, I use interviews and participatory action research as the main methods to gain an understanding of the interning experiences of these particular groups of students. Taking the results of this as a basis, I propose a collection of tools, workshops and exercises that draw upon alternative pedagogies, critical thinking and student-centred methods designed to support change. I hope to initiate a more serious discussion about the kind of work and learning situations that are offered and address the disconnections between the practice of reproductive labour and the ability to think critically about the ways in which unrecognized work and/or the ‘unrecognized worker’ affect the professional development of these students.

I see my research as being part of a larger societal discussion. In the first months of the pandemic, the workers with the most precarious positions at art institutions were fired or put on furlough. We need to recognize the ways that art institutions make reproductive labour disposable, which affects the extent to which those workers matter and are appreciated, whether they are platform-mediated, flex contract workers through an employment agency, specifically trained museum cleaners, volunteers, interns or regular employees. Their work could and should be seen as a political valence of revalorizing reproduction as art.