Oxytocin - Mothering the World

About

After the successful launch in 2017 at the Royal College of Art Procreate Project is returning with the second edition of Oxytocin, Mothering the World, this year in collaboration with Birth Rites Collection and Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care, King’s College London.

Oxytocin is an annual event about mothers and carers staged in a setting that uniquely melds a rich programme of performances and live art with discussion panels and workshops. 

It creates a platform for critical art practices, maternal and feminist theories and health services.

For Oxytocin's second edition, Procreate Project (PCP) is collaborating with Birth Rites Collection (BRC) to deliver a performance programme responding to a curatorial theme questioning iconography, cultural connotations and stereotypes associated with the word ‘Mother/Mothering’ and how they effect LGBTQIA families. 

20 cutting edge contributions between guest speakers and performance artists will share the stage and historical sites at Guy’s Campus, London Bridge this 9th of March. Highlights include a premier of newly commissioned works by artist, researcher and architect Leni Dothan, who challenges the mother's role in Christian iconography and biblical narratives as they were depicted in Renaissance art; Himali Singh Soin and Laura Yuile who both reject the idea of the binary and the problems this representation poses for non-binary perspectives and those who cannot – or choose not to – reproduce. 

While Procreate Project has been showcasing and supporting important performance work that explores the maternal subject; BRC now wants to expand its acquisitions to include performance, with an interest in the non- binary angle.

The rich programme includes site-specific performances including Lynn Lu and Natalie Ramus, whose practices reveals the personal, the private and the public labels of motherhood, a lecture by Israeli born painter, theorist, psychoanalyst and writer Bracha Ettinger and a performative lecture by International queer photographer and intersex activist Del LaGrace Volcano

The panels will host academics, health professionals and artists examining these subjects as well as start a discussion about sensitivity to the LGBTQIA and non-binary parents, research about gay and lesbian parents experiences of maternity services and also surrogacy. In addition we will look at issues for new mothers find ‘motherhood’ framed as an institution and through media narratives.

As part of their on-going work and goals, Procreate Project is creating a highly visible platform for contemporary artists whose work deals with these fundamental subjects and taboos, hardly discussed and represented in public contexts.

“ The programme was a unique one where research and art entwined to explore what it is to be a mother. While at times I felt overwhelmed by the emotional overload of the aesthetic images and text, the event certainly opened my eyes, jolted my senses, and made me question many things – as good art often does” - Udita Iyengar, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at Kings College London IoPPN

Alongside the performances and panels there will be tours of the Birth Rites Collection.

The event is supported by the Birth Rites Collection, Department of Midwifery, part of the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care at King’s College London, using public funding from Arts Council England.

Where: New Hunt’s House, King’s College London Guy's Campus, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 1UL

When: 9th of March 2019 9.30 am / 6pm

Tickets available at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oxytocin-mothering-the-world-tickets-50783333317