MOTHEROTHER

About

MOTHEROTHER brings together a variety of artist’s perspectives on parenting. The selected art works by Hannah Cooke, Katie Cuddon, Sarah Maple, Lauren McLaughlin, Kübra Müjde, Sara Qaed and Kate Sweeney, explore caregiving within systems which often overlook, exclude, censor, minimise or legislate their experience.  

The exhibition is a response to themes emerging from the social art project MOTHEROTHER, which launched in January 2023 as a supportive network for artist parents and carers. This exhibition is not intended to represent the myriad of carer and parenting roles across our creative community, the individuals experiencing the MOTHEROTHER project, nor all those which the project hopes to reach. It is not exhaustive but offers glimpses into some of the facets of mothering and motherhood. The story of this exhibition, like all care journeys, is not linear or focused upon conclusions. Rather it is something which has grown from conversations and experiences; some components developed by chance and some by design.

The exhibition is indebted to the mothers and carers, who have come together in the North East to share their experiences. It also wouldn’t be possible without the revolutionary voices of mothers who have transformed understandings of collective care and mothering. As with many of the aspects of MOTHEROTHER, this exhibition is a way of asking questions, generating thinking, and learning from others. There is no doubt that there will be issues raised about elements which are lacking. Exclusions are not intentional, but we should always ask what and who is missing? 

MOTHEROTHER is an invitation to contemplate motherhood and mothering in all its forms, and the mental, physical, and societal implications of this state. Each artist’s work contends with the nature of care and the role of mother. Widely debated and scrutinised, mothering is drowned in polarising unsolicited opinions.  

“The radical potential of ‘mother’ comes after the ‘m’. It is the space that the ‘other’ takes in our mouths when we say it… we are something else.” – Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M/Other Ourselves: A Black Queer Feminist Genealogy for Radical Mothering, 2016.

Hannah Cooke’s films ‘Ada vs. Abramovic’ and ‘Ada vs. Emin’ challenge artworld stereotypes and bias through intricate reworkings of renowned feminist artworks. Katie Cuddon’s bodily ceramics reflect upon the tactile intimacy between parent and child. Lauren McLaughlin highlights reproductive justice, access to basic human rights, and the reclaiming of power by single mothers through video and sculpture. Sarah Maple’s photographs critique social media trends around gender and pregnancy reveals, as well as, exploring her own experience as artist-parent. In Kübra Müjde’s painting a barefoot mother cradles her child against the winter night and the cruelty of the socioeconomic gulf. Sara Qaed’s drawings interrogate state violence, corruption, power, and mothering in times of genocide. Kate Sweeney’s drawings and film are concerned with queer and adoptive families, exploring how relations are formed beyond the materials and myths of blood and DNA.