With love not for love

With love not for love is a flamboyant and performative act of protest that gathers care workers and their allies in the streets of Molenbeek. 

This cheerful moment is part of a longer trajectory that Brussels-based artist Anna Rispoli is conducting with La Ligue des travailleuses sans papiers and local and international sisterhood organisations. In the frame of this research, they share with each other political tools, artistic methodologies, mutual support and feminist joy in activism. This iteration focuses on the ambiguous relationship between care work and the emotional expectations it generates. It thus raises the question: Who takes care of those who take care of our society? 

“There is so much love in the meal you cook”, “You don’t mind not being paid because you love them”, “Please don’t leave me alone!” What happens when care workers and caregivers get intimate with their employers? How does the already ambiguous border between choice and obligation get softer? 

This empowering gathering aims to give visibility to a multitude of perspectives, united by their struggle for a society that takes care as its foundation. It focuses its attention on fair remuneration and recognition of those in charge of the reproduction of life: cleaning, cooking, raising children, assisting elderly people, etc. 

With love not for love, which is chaotically unfolding in Molenbeek on the occasion of Septemberfest, is a first blueprint for a potential bigger event that will emerge from this 2-year trajectory in the autumn of 2025. 

• Anna Rispoli works between artistic creation and civic space, developing prototypes for sharing material resources, intelligence and affect. For twenty years her transdisciplinary projects, performances, and urban installations have been created in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. 

In recent years, she has been working on various forms of "recreated documentary" such as Your word in my mouth about intimacy, eroticism and politics, Close Encounters (Nestroy Award nomination) in collaboration with teenagers about the social pressures they face, and A Certain Value (European network InSitu), confronting the assembly practices of four different communities.