Photography by Ruth Samuels, commissioned by Theos.

Care work is chronically underpaid and undervalued in our society. It is often spoken of as an ‘unskilled’ or ‘low–skilled’ endeavour. In policy analyses care is reduced to a series of tasks, and carers to economic units.   

This series of portraits of carers by Ruth Samuels tells another story; that care work can be considered beautiful and also deeply, particularly human. It sits alongside Theos report: Love’s Labours: Good work, care work and a mutual economy by Hannah Rich. In this report, Hannah argues that: “Far from being unskilled, the reverse is true if we consider the depth of emotional intelligence, the complex and sophisticated skills of relationship, empathy and intuition which are rendered invisible when care work is reduced to physical tasks.”

The title of the exhibition centres on a quotation in this report, which speaks to the sources and resources that the carers draw on in their work, both paid and unpaid. Emotional labour may not have an economic value, but it is not without cost.

References to iconography in the portraits are not there to suggest that those who care are saints, angels or deities. Rather that they are an embodiment of our most basic and most sacred human vocation; to care and to be cared for – or to put it simply; love.

You can find out more about the portraits here.