He Fa on Graeber

Below the dark green vertically striped top are loose cargo trousers with large side pockets; green shoelaces on the trainers pick up the color again. Wearing this Graeber outfit, I first feel the possibility of carrying tools at any moment. Yet this image alone cannot tell us whether the pockets are empty or full, much less who has done truly useful work today.

Visible tools often serve as evidence of labor. Carry a ladder or a box, and the task suddenly seems countable. Remembering someone else's medication times, or tending to the emotions left by a conversation, is harder to put in a cargo pocket. If we recognize only what can make a pocket bulge, care will remain indefinitely in a place with neither equipment nor pay.

This face of He Fa's has a little slowness to it; it does not look constantly ready to prove its efficiency. I want to let slowness into workwear as well: hearing a request clearly, avoiding a mistake, or waiting for someone to finish speaking may all reduce the work needed later. Such waiting is simply less photogenic and easily obscured by another kind of busyness. The more practical the clothes, the less they should be used to punish people who do not appear constantly active.

Of course, what cannot be measured may also offer evasion a hiding place. Claiming to care quietly does not remove the duty to fulfill agreements and answer questions. Instead of evaluating everything with a single form, those involved could first clarify the needs, efforts and results, then seek a method they can examine together. Invisible labor needs to be articulated, but need not necessarily be compressed into the same kind of number.

I take my hands out of the imagined pockets, leaving a stretch of time in which I need not prove I am busy. The pockets can carry tools or stay empty. What finally deserves asking is who feels a little more at ease after these tasks are done, and who has taken on the uncounted work of finishing up.