Nothing can prepare you for parenthood is a phrase often shared with a knowing half-smile that belies the over-exhaustion in the wake of superiority (or is it pride?) . Replying with hollow grins, I secretly wanted to smack every single person who uttered that phrase. And yet, they were right. For the record, also totally justified in their self-satisfaction. It turns out that something as ubiquitous and ‘natural’ as growing, giving birth to, and caring for your progeny has a long adjustment period. It’s not just the changing diapers, the schedules, the meal times, the money, the dressing, the undressing, the endless battle for sleep. It’s not just the negotiation of how your time is spent, and how to best care for your family, your home, and your future. A year in, and I still don’t feel like I’ve joined the ranks of those we call “parents” or “mothers.” This series, made from moments stolen during the odd nap or distraction, is a reckoning and a tool. It’s an attempt to connect who I was with who I have become, now that my life is filled with the incessant though profound mundanity of clearing scraps of food from a high chair, finding matching socks, nursing, teaching, exposing, loving–performing the theater of life to an awed audience of one.
MATERNAL FANTASIES is an evolving and interdisciplinary group of international artists and cultural producers based in Berlin, Germany. We (re)connected in 2018 to share experiences and insights into the most marginalised topic within both the art world and feminist discourse: Motherhood.
We join forces to embrace, discuss, elaborate and express contrasting experiences and family stories, memories, fantasies, desires and horror scenarios related to ‘Maternal Fantasies’.
Currently we meet every three-weeks to examine through artistic research, collaborative artworks and lived experience the dynamics between artistic creation and motherhood seeking to shape the discourse of motherhood through our artistic working process.
We are an organic group that produces works in different constellations between the individual group members.
Current group members are: Aino El Solh, Hanne Klaas, Isabell Spengler, Lena Chen, Magdalena Kallenberger, Maicyra Leão, Melanie Schlachter, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Olga Sonja Thorarensen, Sandra Moskova.
M1, Arthur Boskamp Stiftung, Hohenlockstedt, April 2019 The photo-text installation "Like so many..." was exhibited at "Colleagues Wanted I - Superheroines and visionary associates for everyday challenges", at alpha nova galerie Berlin in September 2018.
upcoming: Soloexhibition, M1 Arthur Boskamp Foundation, Hohenlockstedt, March 2020 catalogue, Maternal Fantasies, to be published March 2020
Cried Milk (2018 - present)
Cried Milk uses data collected from a smartphone app to visualize what it looks like to exclusively breast pump for twelve months. Each visualization represents one month of data. The blue rings represent one hour, the change in value tracks the hours of sunlight and darkness, while the change in saturation indicates broad weather patterns (sunny versus cloudy). The straight lines each represent one day and the yellow circular bursts represent each 30-minute pumping session. The size of each circle correlates to the quantity of milk collected. This project connect to broader cultural conversations about motherhood. As infertility rates continue to skyrocket, many women experience motherhood through a similar, clinical lens. My hope is that this project gives voice to the millions of women who have struggled to become mothers and honor the under-valued labor of motherhood.
The Shape of Your Sounds (2017 - present)
Using audio surveillance technologies provided by a commercial baby monitor, I capture my baby’s cries and translate that data into visual shapes. The sound waves loop back on themselves in a 360-degree rotation. The result is vaguely reminiscent of the shape of a flower; each burst of sound looks like a petal. The initial purpose for this project was to try to find visual patterns that could be more easily interpreted. However, I quickly realized this was a fool’s game; the visual patterns are as indiscernible as his sounds. Therefore, what remains is a visual record of a moment in time; a beautiful reminder of those sleepless nights when the world was comprised of just my son and myself.
Sleep Regression (2016 – 2017)
“Sleep Regression” is a series of intimate works that were painted in the space of nap times and record the moments I watched my son while working in my home studio. The paintings’ small size and blue palette reproduce the video format and color, mimicking the tension between the close, private space of sleep and the distance created by the act of surveillance. The effects are eerie and disturbing images of rest. Lingering in the unconscious state of sleep the baby’s body looks lifeless. Are these representations of a sleeping child or a fetus? These works are thus unusual documents of baby’s first year of life–odd surrogates for the family photo album.
The gray-scale paintings, on the other hand, reinforce the reference to the sonogram, creating layers of distance. The painting series thus portrays an interesting paradox: the increasing stylistic abstraction chronicles my catharsis after years of fertility struggles as I move further away from my past sorrows, yet the works also reflect a turn inward and becomes more specific to my body (womb) and more private. The delineated forms in black, white, and grey look like the thermal imaging of a birth–drapery resembles the uterine wall, a dark ground morphs into a vaginal opening.
Tethered is based on images I photographed over a 4 month period of time, documenting my life every 30 minutes, as I perform my daily roles of artist, mother, teacher, wife and daughter. This body of work investigates the tethering-effect we experience everyday, by portraying what a specific period of time looks like during different days of the week.
Using a mathematical formula, each image illustrates what a two hour period of time looks like as I balance various roles throughout the week. As unique as each two-hour interval is, certain consistencies also run through our scheduled days. The look and feel of a two hour period in the morning versus a two hour period in the afternoon conveys a very different set of characters, circumstances, interactions, responsibilities, and roles.
In comparison to today, past generations whether by choice or not were very segregated -- work and family life rarely converged. However with technology, today our lives have become more confused, intermingled, and merged -- thus creating the tethering-effect.
Pulling from thousands of images, I chose 4 to 6 images from the same time of day, but on different days of the week (e.g. 2:00pm-4:00pm). Once selected, I digitally slice the chosen images into vertical strips of information. I then reintegrate all the vertical slices to create a single, compressed image of time. Each print illustrates a two hour period. Tethered consists of nine large format prints (43" x 28" x 4 1/2") that document my waking hours of 6 am to midnight. Once compressed, and as in real life, all the the different events and interactions inevitably merge into a singular life experience.
Due to the mathematical equation used to create the work, the images appear to shift and change depending on the distance and the angle from which they being are being viewed. Because of the illusion produced, the work has been mistaken for lenticular prints, however, they are flat prints.