“One of the most anticipated films of the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Riveting and long overdue.” (Filmmaker Magazine)

As a new mother, artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles realized that her avant-garde heroes—Duchamp, Rothko, Pollock—were men, who “didn’t change diapers.” This inspired her “Maintenance Manifesto,” and her groundbreaking public art career devoted to making the unseen visible, elevating maintenance work—childcare, garbage collection, security, custodial labour, etc—to an art form. This documentary, featuring never-before-seen archival footage, follows Ukeles from the 1970s, when she becomes the first artist-in-residence at the NYC Department of Sanitation, to today, as she radically reframes public art, acting on the Jewish belief that the profane is a pathway to the sacred, and that every life is holy. This “visually explosive portrait” (NBC New York) also captures the evolution of the New York art scene over the course of her career.