Jorge Milanes Despaigne, Tour Guide, Translator and Gallery Assistant, Havana, Cuba

Artist elin o'Hara slavick American, born 1965

Date2003

MediumChromogenic print

Dimensions30 x 30 in. (76.2 x 76.2 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the William R. Roberson Jr. and Frances M. Roberson Endowed Fund for North Carolina Art

Object number2006.20.3

On View

Not on view

Label Text
Despite our increasingly mechanized world, global economies have a human face—many human faces, in fact. O’Hara slavick, an artist and professor at UNC–Chapel Hill, began her Workers Dreaming series in 1999. The project began with a very simple question: “What do workers dream about and meditate on while they work?”

Her open-ended results provide us images of private moments but not direct answers. They help us think about the place that daydreaming—thought disconnected from our day-to-day realities—has in our lives. The entire series is composed of similarly individuated, dignified portraits that pay homage to workers and their lifelong efforts. She writes: “Fundamentally, these photographs come from my deep respect for labor and those who perform it . . . [They] are often under-recognized, under-paid, and unnoticed.”ProvenanceCreated Havana, 2003; collection of the artist, Chapel Hill, NC; sold to NCMA, 2006.
Published ReferencesLinda Dougherty, "The BIG Picture," Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (May/June 2007), illus. (color) 12.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The Big Picture," March 18-September 2, 2007.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Close to Home,” February 14–August 10, 2014. Object Rights Statement

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