The pay gap is real and persistent. One way to begin the process of eliminating the disparities between how men and women and white and nonwhite people are paid is to collect data–something that the U.K. recently mandated for all companies with more than 250 employees. Once there’s data, and companies recognize that they have a problem, they can take active steps to pay women and people of color more.
But understanding the emotional toll the pay gap takes on women doesn’t just require science: It needs art as well. Using data about the pay gap in the tech industry from the recruiting startup Hired, a new installation at the Minnesota Street Project art space in San Francisco tackles the pay gap using a swirling cloud of abstract shapes. It was created by the Bay Area-based artist Val Britton, who was formerly Facebook’s artist-in-residence, and it includes a 3D installation that takes up the entire space, and two 2D collages on the walls.
“Tornado” is an apt way to describe the installation, called The Shape of Change. Abstract forms cut out of light-colored paper are suspended from the ceiling with string, creating a floating mass of jagged, complicated shapes punctuated with darker blue angular dots. The work was inspired by the significant number of women who make less than they should be: in Hired’s report, 54% of women had learned they were making less than a male peer in the same job. “I wanted the installation to represent the gap between quantities,” Britton says. “What does it mean to take information and give it physical form, and you can walk around and under, and you can feel your body in relation to this quantity of material?”
And unlike a data visualization–which is just as important in understanding the pay gap problem and advocating for justice–the art is able to tackle the challenges of inequity from a more emotional perspective. “It’s not some computer-generated thing that gives you the info from A to B to C,” Britton says, referencing her art. “It’s thornier than that.”
Britton hopes that the work starts a conversation about the impact of the pay gap and provides a creative space where people can start to think about solutions. “It’s not explaining the information and laying it out to you,” she says. “I don’t have the answer. But through my artwork I’m asking questions.”
The works will be on view until April 14.