‘Heavy Lifting’ is a two-panel, appliqué window-hanging depicting a giant, outstretched arm, four metres long, propped from underneath by two smaller hands that strain with the effort of supporting the arm. Above the giant hand, cascading letters spell out the words ‘Heavy Lifting’. Stitched from recycled towels and clothing, it is installed across two windows of a tenement flat in Garnethill which was formerly nurses’ accommodation for the adjacent Glasgow Royal Cancer Hospital.

This artwork refers to the (often invisible) role of support and care in sustaining communities. Depicting small, work-hardened hands supporting a giant arm, it suggests a discrepancy in responsibility for support work (often gendered, racialized and delegated to the precarious classes) that continues to be highlighted by the circumstances of the pandemic. It is motivated by the questions of: who cares for the carers? and what needs to change in economic models, policy and decision making to value care as an activity of sustaining which is integral to producing?

As well as considering the value of support, ‘Heavy Lifting’ speaks to the experience of sustaining an art practice during the pandemic. Funding pressures, increased competition for fewer opportunities, and alienation from audiences and outcomes demand re-thinking ways of making and doing, and the ways in which artists’ provide and experience support.