Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights visual story

This exhibition is called ‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’.

An exhibition is a collection of things to look at and learn about.

The exhibition is at Wellcome Collection.

The exhibition is in Gallery 1 on level 0 of our building.

‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’ is an exhibition about different kinds of work, and how work can affect our health. It tells stories about:

• People who do the kind of work that we often do not notice or care about. For example, cleaners.
• How some kinds of work can be unsafe or harmful for the people who do them.
• How workers join together and take action to make these kinds of work safer.
• The things people do to heal from this kind of work. Healing means to get better.

The exhibition is in Gallery 1 on level 0.

• objects
• books
• photographs
• paintings and drawings
• sculptures.

• films

• sound works.

If you need any help, you can speak to a member of our team.

People sometimes speak quietly at an exhibition. But you do not have to speak quietly.

The first room is the introduction to the exhibition.

‘Gestures of Labour’ is a short film showing people doing different kinds of work with their hands. The film was made in Jakarta in Indonesia. Indonesia is in Southeast Asia.

The film lasts about 5 minutes and has no sound.

Section 1 is called ‘The Plantation’.

A plantation is a big area of land where things are grown, like:

• coffee
• tea
• cotton.

Working on plantations is very hard. Some workers are exploited. Exploited means people don’t get paid for their work, or are paid very little.

Work on plantations still happens around the world today. Working on a plantation badly harms the workers’ health.

This photo is from around 1882. It shows enslaved people on a coffee plantation in Brazil.

The plantation owner used this photo to advertise his coffee around the world.

‘Dark Garden’ is a group of photographs of tea plantations in Bangladesh and some of the people who work on them.

The people in these photographs get paid around £1 a day for their work.

‘Works by Charmaine Watkiss’ are drawings and a sculpture of women whose ancestors were born in Africa. An ancestor is a person in your family who lived in the past – like a great-grandparent.

These works show plants and fruits that help to heal people when they are ill.

‘Umbanda’ is a painting showing in a group of Afro-Brazilians sharing joy.

Afro-Brazilians are Brazilians who have African ancestors.

The painting is about Umbanda. Umbanda is a religion created by enslaved Afro-Brazilian people. Umbanda was created as part of enslaved people’s resistance on the plantations.

Resistance is when some people struggle against other people who are trying to control them. Through resistance, the enslaved people also shared feelings of joy and freedom together.

‘Mosquito Shrine’ is a work about:

• How humans affect where mosquitoes live. Mosquitoes are tiny flying insects. Mosquitoes travelled to Brazil on ships that carried enslaved people from Africa. 
• How mosquitoes affect human health. Mosquitoes bite humans. These bites can spread diseases in humans. One disease spread by mosquitoes is yellow fever.

Section 2 is called ‘The Street’. It tells stories about:

• people who work in the streets
• how working in the streets can be unsafe, and harmful to your health
• how street workers are joining together and taking action to get better working conditions.

‘Sweeping’ is a work about people who clean the streets in Sharjah, a city in the United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates is a country in Western Asia.

The artist, Vikram Divecha, worked with 5 street sweepers to make an artwork using bags of rubbish that they had collected.

People often don’t notice the work of street sweepers. The artist wanted to show how important and beautiful their work is.

‘Money Makes the World Go Round’ is about the stories and histories of sex workers. Sex workers are people who get paid for sex.

The artist is called Lindsey Mendick. Lindsey worked with a group of sex workers in the UK when she was planning her installation.

Section 3 is called ‘The Home’. It tells stories about how:

• different kinds of work are done in the home
• doing this kind of work can be harmful
• a lot of this work is hidden because it happens inside people’s homes, not in public
• people doing this kind of work are often badly paid, or not paid at all.

‘Washerwoman’ is a sculpture made by Shannon Alonzo. She created it in her grandmother’s house in Trinidad.

Trinidad is an island in the Caribbean. The Caribbean is made up of:

• a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic
• some places in North America and South America that are next to the Caribbean Sea.

The sculpture is about the work that washerwomen did in the Caribbean in the past. It is about the effect of this kind of work on the women’s bodies.

‘No Rest for the Wicked’ is a group of photographs about women in the artist’s family. Her great-grandma, grandma and mum all worked as cleaners. The artist also worked as a cleaner.

The photos show how cleaning can be tiring and hard on the body.

‘Care Chains (Love Will Continue to Resonate)’ is an installation about domestic workers. Domestic workers do different kinds of work in people’s homes, like:

• cooking
• cleaning
• looking after children.

The artist, Moi Tran, made this with migrant domestic workers in England. Migrants are people who move from one country to another, often to find work. 

 To create this installation, Moi worked with:

• musicians
• a body percussionist. Body percussion is when you use your body to create sounds, like clapping
• a choreographer. Choreographers create dance routines
• a composer. Composers create sound and music.

You can find accessible guides at the start of the exhibition.

• A gallery guide with words and pictures.

• A large-print guide.

• A visual story.

• A sensory map. A sensory map shows you where there are things like out-loud sound, bright lights, or seating.

There are 12 stops in the digital guides.

There is a number and a QR code next to each stop in the exhibition. You can scan the QR codes with your phone to get the digital guides.

To scan a QR code:

1)   open the camera on your phone

2)   point it at the QR code

3)   click on the link that appears.

If you do not know how to scan a QR code, we can help you.

There is a white line on the exhibition floor. Follow the white line to get to each stop.

The white line has a pattern that you can feel with your feet.

Or you can listen to the audio-descriptive guide by:

1)   picking up a touch-button handset in the exhibition

2)   pressing the number of the audio stop.

If you need help with anything, you can ask a member of our gallery team.

If you need additional support to enjoy this exhibition, join us for a relaxed opening. At a relaxed opening there will be:

• fewer visitors
• extra gallery staff to help you.

At a relaxed opening you can use our:

• cushions
• ear defenders
• tinted glasses
• tinted visors
• weighted lap pads.