A Study On Waitressing

A Study on Waitressing explores the relationship between labour and personal life, between vulnerability and strength, between the public and private, between the observer and the observed, and between a mother and daughter.

A Study on Waitressing looks at the phenomena of self-representation, by questioning the fictionalised image of the waitressing woman through the metaphor of theatre and the three dimensions that define it: the stage, the backstage and the performative.

The work presents itself as a collection of photographs, archival images, collages, moving images and texts where each work responds to notions around photography, visibility, process and performativity.  

The relationship between the image and performativity is investigated through the figure of my mother, her postures, movements, and behaviours during her job as a waitress. Her figure is used as a vehicle to address concerns on the visible and the hidden in relation to private and public behaviours, with particular attention to the social roles we play in our everyday when we interact with our public. 

 The work is deeply rooted in the psychological and sociological interests of the work of Erving Goffman and his writing on the theatricality of the everyday and on the function of the body in the interpretation of social roles. The restaurant becomes the space where the body acts as a connector between the observer and the observed.  

 A Study on Waitressing explores the different layers and meanings of existing within a social situation, engaging in face-to-face interactions, and playing a character that moves between individuality and social structures and exists between the real and the staged.