Latent Labour
(2020)
During the Covid-19 pandemic the fear of carrying infectious residues of the Covid-19 virus into one’s home was a very real one for thousands of people, both those with underlying health vulnerabilities and those without.
In response to this I began to approach shopping from the perspective of a forensic investigator. During my weekly shopping trip and when receiving deliveries by post, I handled everything with latex gloves, relaying these items to an improvised fingerprinting lab in my studio. I then dusted these items with forensic fingerprint powders, which revealed the invisible or ‘latent’ prints of people who had previously handled these products.
What began as an inquiry into fears about contamination has also become one about the traces left behind by the labourers who make our modern economies possible. Shop workers, parcel delivery people, warehouse workers, and the like are both amongst the most poorly paid, and also often most exposed in a time of social distancing. That vulnerability in large part stems from their invisibility to the rest of us, even when they, and their traces, are in fact right in front of our eyes.
