Meet the Global Gender Parity Initiative Grantees

Stories of Invisible Labor

New America’s Global Gender Parity Initiative is thrilled to announce our new group of grantees. These photographers and artists produced stories that capture the invisible nature of unpaid care work, such as child care, care for sick family members, and elder care.

Charmaine Poh is a Chinese-Singaporean documentary photographer and artist whose work explores gender, memory, youth, and solitude. Her images have been exhibited and published internationally. Based between Singapore and Berlin, she focuses on unfolding narratives across Asia. Charmaine is developing a project about single mothers and their children in Singapore.

Sophia Wallace is an American artist who uses images, video and mixed media to explore how otherness is constructed visually on the gendered, sexualized, racialized body. She has earned critical acclaim and viral recognition for her project CLITERACY.

Christina Antonakos-Wallace is an award-winning American filmmaker and activist working in the intersections of documentary, new media, and education. Through her stories, she explores social inequities. Together they will create a series of cinemagraphs, a new form of image that combine stillness and motion, to visually explore the invisibility of unpaid care work, which upon completion dissolves and must be done again.

Cattleya Jaruthavee is a British-Thai photographer who documents sociological aspects of society, whether it is through exploring herself as the subject or others. Cattleya graduated with a BSc in Sociology and an MA in Photojournalism and is currently based in Bangkok. She intends to shed light on the work she does as a full time mother, by photographing what is often misunderstood as a luxury and therefore remains invisible to society. View her work on Slate.

Alex M. Smith is a New York-based photographer. His photo series will include images of the work and love that is involved in someone putting their own dreams, wishes, and work to the side to assure the proper growth of their child. View his work on Slate.

GGPI is grateful to Gabriella Demczuk (@gdemczuk) for her invaluable inputs during the selection process.

Finally, we wanted to take a look at how "funny" it is that so many women don't get paid to do what is actually a real job. Check out the video below and #ShowUsTheWork by sharing your unpaid care work story.