Woman’s Work - Women Workers by Stephanie Rushton

For Woman’s Work Stephanie Rushton created a series of environmental portraits titled Every Woman an Artist, which highlights how many women are at the forefront of creative projects and change in Stoke-on-Trent. Rushton also created a show reel of documentary photographs titled Women Workers. Archival material from The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, unearthed during her research residency at AirSpace earlier in the year is juxtaposed with new photos Rushton has taken of some of the many unknown women workers of Stoke. Footballers and chocolatiers are captured hard at work, as well as women working in ceramics factories - Rushton seeks to reveal the breadth of jobs women endeavour to undertake in the city. Through looking at images both past and present, it becomes clear that, whilst much has changed and developed, in many instances the woman’s role still looks unchanged. Many photographs become hard to place in time.

Woman’s Work is a partnership project between AirSpace Gallery and The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Woman’s Work seeks to make visible the hidden and unsung labour carried out by women in the home, the workplace and public life, and in particular seeks to redress the imbalance in history and the arts, where work made by women has been undervalued, or simply not recognised.

The exhibition is open at AirSpace Gallery 11am - 5pm, Thursday - Saturday, 30th September to 5th November 2016. The evolving Woman’s Work programme at Potteries Museum and Art Gallery runs through to November 2017.