A life in a day

Katarzyna Sieradzka (Kasia) works three domestic jobs a day. She moved to the UK from Poland 14 years ago and is single mother to her 13 year old son Jakub. She manages her home on her own, ensuring that Jakub, who is autistic, is safe and well. Self-employed, she works with energy in other women's homes, so that those other women can work in jobs that are measured in growth figures and policies.

Her work – domestic labour – is mostly left out of the debate on gender equality, with women's empowerment measured instead by influence at the office. Housework and childcare is outsourced often without workplace protections or benefits, with the result that this work is underpaid and undervalued. The unpaid work of young women aged 18-30, such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of children, is worth £140 billion to the UK economy, according to figures calculated from Office of National Statistics by the Young Women’s Trust in 2020. By the same calculation, the unpaid work of all women aged 18-100 accounts for at least £700 billion.

The aim of my work is to highlight the fundamental role that domestic work has for societal well-being and its contribution to the economy at large, the role of immigration, the realities of the care economy.

The goal here is to do so by presenting the daily life of someone who, because of structural dynamics, might not otherwise tell her story. These are quiet intimate, unconstructed notes on her life taken with a timestamp, both at the work of other homes and in her own home.

It is the beginning of series documenting the lives of different women in order to prompt questions: What is “essential work”? How do we as a society choose to place value on that? Is the current status quo satisfactory? What did we learn from working from home during COVID 19? Isn't it time to rethink?

My process is collaborative by nature, developed in conversation with Kasia. I know Kasia through her work since 2016, and I find her an inspiration. Kasia was involved in the selection and presentation of images so far. It’s her life.