Eleonora Agostini, A Study on Waitressing, 2024

Eleonora Agostini’s A Study on Waitressing is a multi-layered investigation on waitressing used as a metaphor to explore ideas of gender behaviours, societal expectations, and performing in and for the public.
The work scrutinizes the fictionalized image of the ‘waitressing woman’, by exploring the stage, the backstage, and the performative aspects of this role.

Agostini looks at mundane gestures and postures, commonplace objects and materials, strategies and visual codes of the service industry context to reflect upon power and gender dynamics, labour, representation, and the gaze.
Central to the project is the figure of Agostini’s mother, whose postures, movements, and behaviours serve as a focal point. This figure becomes a vehicle to explore the visible and hidden aspects of identity, emphasizing the social roles performed in daily interactions. The restaurant setting acts as a microcosm where the body mediates between observer and observed, highlighting the theatricality inherent in everyday life.

A Study on Waitressing delves into the relationship between labour and personal life, between vulnerability and strength, between the public and private, between the observer and the observed, and between a mother and daughter.