Why we work together, Respect and Recognition for Domestic Work

Ask! is a group of cultural
workers making alliances with
(migrant) domestic workers
in the Netherlands and
elsewhere to research and
address the conditions and
demands of domestic work
today. Ask! stands for Actie
Schone Kunsten, a punning
name using the traditional
Dutch term for ‘fine arts’, which
can also be read as ‘clean
arts’. By organising public
actions and experimenting with
forms of visual representation
and rhetorical strategies,
Ask! challenges the gap
between ‘real politics’ and
the political, questioning the
dominant economic systems
that devalue our work and
our rights for decent work
and living. Presented here
is documentation from their
five-point thesis, Why We Work
Together , and reverse graffiti
campaigns in ‘dirty’ areas of
Utrecht and London, using isotypes depicting an ‘army’ of
domestic workers created by
Berlin artist Andreas Siekmann.

NB: In advance of the festive
opening of GDR GOES
ON – Ljubljana, on Friday 4
October, from 2 to 5pm, Ask!
will perform a reverse graffiti
action throughout Ljubljana in
collaboration with Justice for
Domestic Workers (London)
and the local group Revolting
Women Social Workers.