Caregivers

Intrigued by the dense history of female labour in the Rovereto region of northern Italy, the video Caregivers was our response to this macro-topic, produced within the framework of the exhibition Principle Hope – The European Biennial – Manifesta 7, curated by Adam Budak, 2008.

The video portrays two migrant carers from the Ukraine and Romania, their relationship to their (elderly) clients, and their daily work in the Rovereto area. For the video soundtrack the artists commissioned Icelandic composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir to write a music score to an article by a young journalist Davide Berretta, in which he describes this recent and rapidly growing phenomenon. Karólína wrote the music for soprano, oboe and female choir. The video combines footage shot in and around two homes in northern Italy, edited to the soundtrack with footage documenting the singers and the musician recording the cantata in Iceland – the whole thus juxtaposing a journalistic article and video documentation with contemporary classical music.