“My mom doesn’t work. She stays at home… well, she cooks, keeps the house clean, but she doesn’t have a real job.” It was with this sentence, innocently spoken by the son of photographer Olga Steinepreis, that My Mother Doesn’t Work was born — a photographic project reflecting on the invisibility of domestic labor and the sense of identity tied to motherhood.
Born in Novorossiysk, in what was then the USSR, and now based in Freigericht, Germany, Olga Steinepreis is a self-taught photographer who has gained international attention with her intimate, narrative self-portraits. Her work explores family dynamics, women’s social roles, and motherhood, often through images that feel suspended in time and space.
In the project My Mother Doesn’t Work, Olga literally stages herself, though her face is almost always hidden or elusive — emphasizing how her presence, and her labor, are taken for granted. “There’s always something to do, even if no one notices. It’s as if the house runs by itself,” she writes. Her photographs depict a daily life made of repeated gestures, inhabited spaces that are never fully lived in, where the female figure blends into the surroundings until she nearly disappears.
The project is not just a personal reflection, but also a social critique. The work of caring for the home and children is often perceived as something natural, instinctive, devoid of economic value — and therefore “not a real job.” Steinepreis challenges this narrative through a poetic yet direct visual language, making visible what society tends to ignore.
It’s no surprise that My Mother Doesn’t Work has caught the attention of awards and industry publications, from It’s Nice That to Dodho Magazine, confirming the expressive power of Olga’s work. Her images don’t aim to idealize motherhood, but instead tell its story in all its ambiguity, fatigue, and hidden beauty.
In Steinepreis’ world, the home is not just a physical space, but an emotional battlefield where a mother’s identity is defined — and dissolved. And in this space, photography becomes a tool of resistance and affirmation.
