They Don’t Pay Me to Worry, Thomas Roach
Clocking in for Unpaid Labour Canada
Clocking in for Unpaid Labour Canada is an artist-led project that asks community members to ponder the work they do day-to-day without being paid.
In late 2023 artists Jennie Johnston and Shamina Senaratne hosted local workshops and put out a call to artists and community members across Canada to make artwork on time cards and engage in a conversation about unseen labour.
Timecards record the hourly work done by workers in paid institutions. In many ways they are obsolete today, but artists and community members were welcomed to ponder the work they do without pay. This included work that may be paid but was undervalued and/or underpaid.
Going into three years of creation and dialogue, over one hundred artists and community members from nine provinces and one territory contributed over one hundred and fifty time cards addressing diverse perspectives. Unpaid or underpaid work is universal, all humans do this work from laundry - to workplace overtime - to caring for an aging parent.
From August 22 to 24th 2025, we welcomed 120 visitors to the Deer Lake Gallery in a 5 hour stretch each day. Including a Federal MP and board members from the Burnaby Arts Council. The two art making workshops were filled by 20 enthusiastic community participants each day. We had visitors who made special trips to visit the exhibit and some who saw our signs in the park and walked in due to interest in the topic. We also had the event written about in the online Georgia Straight and Stir Vancouver.
From January to April 2026 a comprehensive exhibition of 125 cards made by 111 participants from the project was displayed in The Outlet Gallery in Port Coquitlam British Columbia.
Hosted alongside this exhibition were three community events beginning with an online Unpaid Labour Panel & Discussion in February 2026. Featuring curator, Shamina Senaratne, and special guests SFU professors Kathleen Millar (anthropology), and Mohsen Javdani (economics); and Ginger Sedlarova, participating artist, this conversation covered unpaid labour and its impact on our communities and personal lives. The talk can be viewed here.
The other two events were a Curators Talk & Presentation where the project was discussed in more detail featuring stories behind the cards themselves and a Time Card Making Workshop where attendees were able to create time cards that spoke to their unique perspectives. You can read more about the exhibition in Port Coquitlam from this Freshet News feature.
If you would like to discuss possible workshops or bring Clocking In to your community, gallery or museum please get in touch with Jennie here.
Jennie and Shamina at a time card workshop
Timecards by Bettina Matzkuhn and Rachael Ashe
Timecards by Fariba Kalantari
Time cards by Maria Epp
Project Origins
This project was created by Chicago Illinois artist Elaine Luther in 2021, as she explored labour, domestic labour, and unpaid caring work and was undertaken by Jennie and Shamina with permission.
Learn more about the project so far at elainelutherart.com and see the gallery of finished time cards here
Card Themes
With a diversity of issues raised various themes began to emerge in the topics covered. Reflecting on the hours of unpaid labour undertaken by artists, the repetitive and grueling nature of domestic chores and caring done predominately by women, and the gratitude for labour done invisibly by strangers we have never met, the time cards tell rich stories of duty, exhaustion, and challenge.
