New Maternalisms Redux is the third and last in the New Maternalisms exhibition series (following Toronto 2012 and Santiago 2014). It features five artists drawn from the first two exhibitions: Lenka Clayton, Jess Dobkin, Alejandra Herrera, Courtney Kessel, & Jill Miller. The work of these artists represents a spectrum of experience; it includes queer and straight identified mothers, single and partnered mothers, mothers of differently abled children, mothers of twins and singletons, and a represents range of race/class/economic privilege. This range of positionalities inflects the performance and project-based work presented here -- work that investigates the maternal iteratively, as a political and affective force. Considered individually and together, these works engage with one another and the public, drawing the community into important conversations around what it means to mother, as a non-reductive, thinking-feeling and political practice, today.
A three-day colloquium, Mapping the Maternal: Art, Ethics, and the Anthropocene, is being held in conjunction with the exhibition, with participants drawn from the most prominent voices on feminist art and the maternal today. The keynote presentation is being delivered by internationally recognized feminist theorist and art historian, Dr. Griselda Pollock. This colloquium, open to the public, brings crucial thinking on the anthropocene and anthropogenic climate change together with thinking on the maternal as metaphor, practice, and politics. Accompanying the exhibition there will be a film screening at Edmonton’s Metro Cinema at the Garneau Theater (3:30 pm on May 13th). The screening features two shorts, Sheena Wilson’s PetroMama and Gina Miller’s Family Tissues, and a full-length screening of Irene Lusztig’s award-winning The Motherhood Archives.
Michelle Hartney is a Chicago based artist whose work addresses a broad range of topics, from women’s health issues, to the concept of heroes, love, and the cosmos. She works in a variety of materials, including fiber, wood, found objects, and most recently, performance. Her interest in using art to address social issues began during her graduate studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was an Albert Schweitzer Fellow.
In 2015 she became the Chicago rally coordinator forImproving Birth's nationwide Labor Day rallies. Most recently, Hartney joined Every Mother Counts as arunning ambassador. With twenty-six years of distance running to draw from, including several marathons, triathlons, and running cross country and track for Purdue University, she is forming a team of men and women to race with and raise awareness about maternal healthcare issues. Click here for more information about joining her team.
Italian born, Amy moved to London in 1998 and graduated from Central Saint Martins College in 2005. Her work is mainly autobiographical but also holds a socio-political dynamic. Making the personal public her work originates from the female body, concepts of everyday life, loss of identity, the importance of memories and the abstraction of longing are central to her practice. Domesticity as a ‘visual language’ where maternal subjectivity is explored via different media such us drawings, photography, video installation and performance.