Art and Labor in the Ancient Mediterranean World

The labor of ancient people shaped the physical and material landscape of the ancient Mediterranean, although these efforts are often overlooked or rendered invisible to us today. Nevertheless, material evidence of ancient labor survives in forms such as terracotta molds that index mass production, depictions of artistic workshops in Attic vase paintings, and laboring caryatids that support objects and buildings throughout the Mediterranean world­—including Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Near East. This labor (artistic, manual, domestic, etc.) remains embedded in the landscape and visualized in the very artworks produced, shaping the viewer’s engagement and lived experience with these works.

This session invites papers exploring visual depictions of labor (broadly defined) across media and cultural contexts in the ancient Mediterranean world. Questions to consider include (but are not limited to): Who is depicted performing this labor/work? What kind of labor are they doing? How do we define work/labor in ancient art? Why depict images of laborers? What labor is not recorded in the visual record and why? How can we uncover invisible labor of unknown artists in the ancient world? What can depictions of labor in the ancient world teach us about representations of labor today?

Proposals exploring these ideas and more are welcomed, especially those that approach the material from a critical lens, such as postcolonial, feminist, and Marxist/materialist theory. By drawing attention to visible and invisible labor in the ancient world, this session aims to contribute to larger discussions of art, labor, and work in art history.