My work investigates the relationships between labour, work and care, drawing on historical and personal narratives to disrupt and interrogate perceptions of value. In particular I’m interested in invisible labour, both women’s (parents’) unpaid familial care, especially emotional labour (or the ‘motherload’) and the additional invisible labour that women artists undertake due to being undervalued/overlooked by a market-oriented art world. The way these two inequalities intersect, and especially the role of ‘love’ in making those who care susceptible to exploitation, in terms of both reproductive labour and devotion, is central. Sometimes I use gold, exploiting its seductive and versatile materiality to question ideas of solidity and flux in the increasingly financialized global economy.

Charlotte Warne Thomas is an artist, writer and researcher based in South East London