Marlous holds a BA in Art History from Radboud University Nijmegen, where she also did a Research Master in Art & Visual Culture. Her research is focussed on the ways in which notions of purity and the labour of cleaning have been visualised by activists and how these ‘visualisations’ have been and might be interpreted.
Cleaning can be a necessary activity performed by activists to maintain the area they occupy, but it can also be a powerful metaphor for change or an expression of moral outrage. Bearing in mind how the work of cleaning, as reproductive labour, has been gendered, racialised and classed, the representation of this kind of labour is a feminist issue. With this in mind, Marlous' research addresses the following questions: how are notions of purity and the labour of cleaning visualised in images of social movements? What claims might such images be seen to make and what might the feminist implications be?
PGR Supervisors: Prof. Hilary Robinson & Prof. Marsha Meskimmon