With Love Not For Love

A flamboyant 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 co-facilitating together with local and international collectives of women who migrated, with and without papers and their sisterhood organisations. In the frame of this research, they share with each other political tools, artistic methods, mutual support and joy in feminist 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?

Whether in their families, or those of their employers, whether paid or unpaid, women are required to provide care labour for the elderly, children and the house. And this labour is often called “love”. For women who migrated, this caring bond is also the required condition to acquire legal residence, to the point where it becomes a threatening ambiguity.

The aim of this empowering gathering is to reclaim the terrain of love as a ground for nurturing oneself, sisterhood and political debate, thus creating a way to converge into a powerful collective body and joyfully engage in the struggle for regularisation and a more just society for everybody.

With love not for love, which is chaotically unfolding on the bridge at Porte de Flandre on the occasion of MolenFest, is a first blueprint for a potential bigger event that will emerge from this 2-year trajectory.

a project initiated by Anna Rispoli

together with members of La Ligue des travailleuses domestiques, Comité des femmes sans papiers, Occupation de la Paix, Vie Féminine

dramaturgy: Nina Ferrante, Ophélie Mac

performer advisor: Ophélie Mac

coproduction: Kaaitheater, KANAL-Centre Pompidou, SPIN

production care: Teresa Gentile

thanks to Territorio Domestico, Exil & Création and all the allies