What is it about?
Since the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of migrant domestic workers from the Philippines have moved to Hong Kong. As they filled the city’s growing demand for care work, they also altered the city’s art practice and cultural landscape. In this article, I propose to consider a double meaning of ‘domesticity’ – motherhood and motherland – to examine the migratory experience of Filipina domestic workers Hong Kong's contemporary art.
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Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Focusing on Cedric Maridet’s Filipina Heterotopia (2008) and Xyza Cruz Bacani’s We Are Like Air (2018), I examine how ‘domesticity’ has become particularly pertinent to understanding the ‘border’ through the movement of bodies and the global transferal of care labour.
Perspectives
Staying at home during the global pandemic of Covid-19 has taught me to appreciate housework. I hope this article can also help us better appreciate domestic labour and care work—especially those done by migrant workers who also remain invisible.
Junting Huang
Cornell University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Bordering domesticity: Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong’s contemporary art, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, July 2021, Intellect,
DOI: 10.1386/jcca_00036_1.
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