The MYLFworks project uses the role of mother/caretaker interchangeably with sex worker, which is another form of care taking. While desiring one’s mother sexually is a social taboo, sexualizing female domestic workers is a practice with a long, known history. The female domestic worker has frequently been cast in the role of both mother, who cares for the children and home, and sexualized woman, who assumes the role of sexual caretaker. DuVerney is interested in this history, where these roles become interchangeable and where they then intersect with race and class. In A Scrubbing (one of the project’s five videos) the MYLF takes on the role of Mary Magdalene, the whore who redeems herself through the use of the body, washing the feet of Christ with her hair. The MYLF is using her body as just another domestic tool, as she dunks her head into a soapy bucket of water and begins to scrub the floor with her hair; this is the role of the mother. But her body is hanging down from the counter top and she is gyrating her hips as her head of hair moves along the kitchen floor. The sexual nature of this act is resistant to being invisible and ignored. In MYLFworks the MYLF isn’t dressed as the stereotypical June Cleaver type of mother, but rather as a tired and possibly resentful sex-worker who exists somewhere between the home and the streets. She’s wearing fishnet stockings but with an old t-shirt, her make up is on but her hair is still in rollers. This person is not happy to be here but she is still performing.

Curated by Momenta Art