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
ILThere might be magic. Like death, magic is hopeful and scary. A skull grows crystals and a prosthetic bruises. A small foot kicks and slides across the inside of a belly making a wave in the flesh. Sheep’s horns will often grow back into their skull. The body senses and interprets information beyond what the mind is conscious of. The body operates beyond our will and is affected internally by what happens externally and vice versa. As a result there is a lack of physical control over our own bodies. The most recent artworks are influenced by the idea of creating artifacts and documentation of the body and medical treatments in a time unknown. Like speculative fiction, but grounded in real history and the Anthropocene, the works re-imagine our physical and psychological relationship to the body. Using watercolor paintings, animations and sculptures the work depicts the body in metamorphic and sometimes magical states of growth and decay. They explore the familiar and the unknown of embodiment to reveal primal desires, instincts, and fears. The works appear frozen in a moment of metamorphosis, between states of sensuality, life, health and consciousness. Our bodies and psychology are presented as unknowable, yet inescapable, forces in our lives.