We’re glad you asked. While we recognize that there are many forms of invisible labor that take place in gallery, museum, and other exhibition contexts, we were developed to primarily serve the needs of workers who do the physical, manual labor that goes in to making an exhibition.
The evidence of this labor can be seen, but is not considered the “content” of the exhibition: Lighting, casework, a sharp painted line, a clean corner, transporting and installing art and artifacts, preparing the wall text, environment building, projector-wrangling, etc.
In particular, we are interested in advocating for workers who have little institutional security: on-call, temporary, independent contractors, freelancers, project-based workers, but temporary status is not a requirement and we are interested in fostering conversation across categories of employment.
If you identify as a preparator, technical specialist, art handler, installer, or exhibition builder, you are probably an “Art Worker”. This definition may broaden in the future, but for now, we would like to illuminate this area of Art Work.