In these three short, early Super-8 films, Rosler reflects on the relationship between labor and leisure. Set in the arch-American "home movie" context of a sunny suburban yard, Backyard Economy I and II document the mundane activities of a woman going about her domestic chores. Quietly depicting this figure in the tasks of mowing and watering the grass, hanging laundry to dry, and keeping her son company, Rosler points up the labor that allows leisure, and interrogates the "economy" that creates her role. In the film Flower Fields, Rosler creates a color field painting from the vivid flower-growing fields along Highway 5 in California, which provide a living for the many, most undocumented, workers in the area.
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Set in the arch-American "home movie" context of a sunny suburban yard, Rosler's early Super-8 film Backyard Economy I documents the products of mundane domestic chores. Silently depicting scenes of laundry hanging out to dry in a suburban backyard, Rosler points up the labor that allows leisure and interrogates its underlying "economy."
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"This short film was intended to create a colour field painting based on the flower fields that provided the living for so many, mostly undocumented, workers in the area. When the camera closes in on the beautiful colour-striped hillside, the laborers in the field can be seen. Later, in a run up Highway 5, we see the immigration police at their mobile roadblock."