In Guǎnlǐ de shǒu. The managed hand (2018-2020) the artist start point is the eponymous book by Miliann Kang (2008), in which the author conducts a detailed analysis of the performativity of work associated with the provision of services related to the body. Through a survey carried out in beauty salons in three specific districts of New York that Kang classifies as “Uptown nails”, “Crosstown nails” and “Downtown nails” - which present well-differentiated social classes - the sociologist introduces the beauty salon as a place where categories of gender, race and class are violently affected.
María Alcaide approaches the nail salon to keep talking about labour, more specifically body work, which involves both physical effort and emotional performance. In this sense, her experience as a saleswoman is closely linked to Kang’s discoveries concerning the demand for bodywork and its relationship to class and gender. In this pyramid of feminized work, there is always women who take care of others, but the poor women have to work also to take care of other women -those who are placed above them on the scale of privileges.
