The display Workers (2019) at Tate Modern showcases works from photographers Helga Paris, Olga Chernysheva and Chris Killip. They respectively documented the female clothing workers in East Berlin in the 1980s, British industry workers in 1989 and underground station staff in Moscow in 2007. Titled after the occupation of the photographed, the chosen series adopt, as conventionally perceived, a proletarian perspective of people with the greatest ordinariness, while outlining the historical context they are situated in.

The exhibition carries noticeable evidence rooted in the labour conditions and relative movements and depiction over the last century. Chernysheva and Killip both captured the motions, indicating the workers’ ever-going and repetitive labour. However, they positioned the lens from a spectator’s angle, creating a sense of distance and enclosure with the facilities and machine in the foreground as the barrier. Meanwhile, Helga Paris’s series work Women at the Treff-Modelle Clothing Factorytakes the form of portraits, in which she positioned the women as the very focus.

Figure 1: Gu, F. (2019) On Duty [photograph]. Tate Modern, London.

Figure 2: Killip, C. (1989-90) Tire Inspector [photograph].

Figure 3: Paris, H. (1984) Women at the Treff-Modelle Clothing Factory [photograph].

One image (Figure 3) from Paris’s series stands out in comparison. Instead of staring at the camera while in a matching environment, the woman pictured looks away. She stares somewhere behind the camera with the evidently apathy. Although fully exposed under the flashlight, she creates an ambient barrier that somehow functions similarly as the physical ones in works of Chernysheva and Killip. She is fairly stylish. Wearing a wave-pointed apron and a bracelet with a fashionable bob, she poses elegantly with conspicuous femininity and hence a slight sense of rejection towards her occupation. Interrupting the continuity throughout the series, she urges the onlookers to regard her not as part of the setting but individually herself. The use of occupational features can be traced back to remarkable German Photographer August Sander, especially in his collection People in the 20^th Century. While Sander captured the labour condition in the pre-war Weimar era, Paris echoed with her series of post-war socialist East Germany.

Figure 4: Sander, A. (1928) Bricklayer [photograph].

Within such context of East Berlin, this photograph (Figure 3) could be assigned more value. In the conservative German tradition, women were regarded as subordinate to their husbands. Although experiencing the dramatic change of warfare, the feminist movement in Germany was still struggling to progress. Some of the women Paris portrayed in the 1980s could possibly be the first generation of independent female workforce in East Germany, considering that the married German women could not work without the permission of husbands until 1977 (Stefanello, 2019).

Therefore, Women at the Treff-Modelle Clothing Factorycan be viewed as symbolic. Positioned as a work team, the women represented themselves at the same time. Moreover, that one photograph (Figure 3) serves as a portrayal to praise the individuality of labourers, as well as the embracing and persevering femininity.

Reference:

Gu, F. (2019) On Duty [photograph]. Tate Modern, London.

Killip, C. (1989-90) Tire Inspector [photograph]. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/killip-tire-inspector-p20397 (Accessed: 16 May 2019).

Paris, H. (1984) Women at the Treff-Modelle Clothing Factory [photograph]. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/paris-women-at-the-treff-modelle-clothing-factory-p81621 (Accessed: 16 May 2019).

Sander, A. (1928) Bricklayer [photograph]. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sander-bricklayer-al00038 (Accessed: 16 May 2019).

Stefanello, V. (2019) ‘Germany celebrates 100 years of women’s suffrage’, Euronews, 17 January. Available at: https://www.euronews.com/amp/2019/01/17/germany-celebrates-100-years-of-women-s-suffrage (Accessed: 17 May 2019).