Not all roses: Women and work in Istria

The exhibition is the result of research on female workers’ experiences and archival material from the 18th century onwards. Representing heterogeneous experiences related to paid work in industrial and in the post-industrial context, the exhibition also opens up the issue of ‘non-work’ (Nikolić Đerić, 2020), that is household- unpaid work as the economic basis of many families, but which, according to the authors, is not sufficiently valorized. 

Starting with the fact that, until a certain period, only men occupation was entered in public registers (for example 'farmer'), but in which very often women equally participated, the authors connect the invisibility of women in historical written sources with today's unequal position of women on the labor market. Describing women's work at home, in the fields, at the market, in the factory and at the computer, the exhibition will point out the double burden of many women both in the past and today. The exhibition presents material from the collections "Economy" and "Photographs" of the Ethnographic Museum of Istria, and "Graphics" from the Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria. The concept of the exhibition is based on connecting the personal stories of the narrators with museum objects as symbolic bearers of experiences. By interpreting and contextualizing them we want to open museum collections to the public and build community relations with "nameless" objects preserved in museums.

Production: Etnografski muzej Istre / Museo etnografico dell’Istria                                  
Authors: Tamara Nikolić Đerić i Ivona Orlić                                                    
Graphic and exhibition design: Kristina Kalčić - KKA Studio
Technical support: Dragan Dimovski

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