Backyard Economy I

The first in a pair of silent Super 8 films centering on the backyard of a modest house in a coastal community of north San Diego County. The word “economy” itself was coined in relation to household maintenance and reproduction, and these paired films relate to the domain of women and children, pets and plants, growth and regeneration, out of view of the street. These cycles depend on sun, wind, and water as well as, typically, the energy and oversight of women; invisible labor in the classic sense, made visible only in its outcomes. In the first of the pair, the central subject is the laundry, hung out to dry in rank upon rank of clothesline. In the second, the focus is on a woman mowing the lawn. The lawn is mowed in an approximate rectangle, the dog runs in a similar formation, a child wanders by, but the lawn sprinkler sprays out a circular pattern, and the cycle of watering and washing, on the one hand, and evaporation on the other, continues without foreseeable end.

This title is also available on martha rosler: crossings.