A new exhibition at Museum Tinguely in Basel, titled "Labouring Bodies," surveys more than a century of art exploring women’s relationship with machines and technology. Curated by Sandra Beate Reimann, the show features 36 artists from the turn of the 20th century to today, including Helen Chadwick, Mary Kelly, Sella Hasse, Alice Lex-Nerlinger, Alexandra Navratil, Juliana Huxtable, and Ani Liu. It examines female labour in offices, factories, homes, and biological reproduction through paintings, film, photography, and installations, inspired by Navratil’s film "The Night Side" (2016) about a former factory worker at the Agfa-Orwo plant in Germany.
The exhibition matters because it addresses the historical invisibility of women’s work—both paid and unpaid—and the art it has inspired, challenging the traditional male-centric focus on human-machine relationships. By connecting reproductive labour to productive labour and highlighting overlooked artists from the early 20th century, the show reframes feminist art history and underscores persistent inequalities in domestic, industrial, and digital work today.