A photo leveller

A photo leveller

50 pairs of women — maids and their employers — stepped away from their daily routines to be photographed about what unites them:

For the photos the employers and maids wore the same thing: a white shirt and no jewellery or decoration. With the images made under these “equalizing” conditions, the artists leave it up to the viewer to guess — using one’s own cultural codes — which woman is which.

What happens:

See also:
Lugar Común (Common Place), the photography project (PDF)

The act of seating them facing the camera in the same position was an exercise in dignifying the two women, so that they would look at the camera with the same pride, with the same openness.

And harder still, we have to do the same.

[Image: Each pair had a different relationship; some were much closer, lasting 30 years or more, and others knew each other just three or four months.]