Monday, May 18, 2020

CR Favorites List: Pandemic Edition Part I

Christa Donner, Two Interiors (installation view), 2014
Sheltering in place with the complex dramas of young children doesn’t exactly lend itself to thoughtful article-writing or transcribing interviews. But there are so many great projects coming out now that are relevant to this community, we wanted to collect some of them together in one place. Whether you’re looking for inspiration, or just something that’s interesting to watch with the kids in your life, we hope there’s something on this list you’ll like. We'll keep 'em coming. And if you’re on Facebook, please join the Cultural ReProducers Network, where parenting artists are actively skillsharing and posting great things like these from around the world all the time.

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Experiment 120: A Playlist of Short, Experimental Films for Kids
Looking for something interesting to watch with your kids besides Netflix cartoons? Look no further than this great playlist. After watching, introduce your kids to one of the many free stop-motion apps out there, and see what they come up with while you dedicate some time toward a short creative project of your own.

Labor: Motherhood in Art 
Joey Fauerso, “You Destroy Every Special Thing I Make” (2017-2019),
installation view, Labor: Motherhood & Art 2020 (images by Trey Broomfield
courtesy of New Mexico State University Art Museum)
I think most of us would agree that it's tough to replicate the experience of a physical exhibition online.
However, there are some advantages, including the chance to see (and document!) a show you might never otherwise know of or travel to see in person. So perhaps it is in everyone's best interest that this exhibition, co-curated by museum director Marisa Sage and artist Laurel Nakadate, has been meticulously documented, reviewed, and shared virtually. The show features an outstanding collection that includes pieces by Yoko Ono, Patty Chang, Amy Cutler, Hồng-Ân Tru’o’ng & Hu'o’ng Ngô, Wendy Red Star, and many others.

The exhibition also features two smaller exhibitions: one collecting of Mexican mother-and-child Retablos organized two curatorial studies MA candidates, and a gallery dedicated to the creative output of MFA students Katrina Chandler and Maggie Day. The two mothers applied and participated in Lenka Clayton’s Artist Residency in Motherhood, thanks in part to childcare support offered through the museum to support the development of new work, artists statements, and bios to support their studio practices.

Artist Residency in Motherhood
Speaking of which... maybe now's a great time to apply? This generous and generative ongoing project grew from artist Lenka Clayton's own struggles to reshape a professional identity and creative practice as she entered into motherhood (twice), and has built an active and international community of exchange between mothers, using the challenges of life at home with children as a creative prompt.

Parenting Artists Singapore #2: Meetup with Christa Donner on May 22
Parenting Artists SG is a new group generating conversations about caregiving and creative community in Singapore. On Friday, May 22nd, Cultural ReProducers founder Christa Donner will present to the group about the work she’s been doing at home as an Artist-in-Residence at Yale-NUS in Singapore with her family, as well as the strategies of other artist parents and family residency experiences she’s learned from along the way. Depending on where you are in the world, be sure to check your time zones before signing up (Singapore is roughly 13 hours ahead of Chicago). Registration will be capped at 30 participants.

Shaun Leonardo and Mckendree Key paint on tree bark with their children
in Vermont during quarantine. (photo courtesy Mckendree Key)
During Pandemic, Artist-Parents Reflect and Get Creative with their Kids
Hyperallergic is posting all kinds of interesting things about artist-parents these days. This article features in-progress work by parenting artists Edgar Arceneaux, Shaun Leonard, Mckendree Key, and others getting creative with their kids during the Pandemic. They also shared a great Mother’s Day review of the book “Inappropriate Bodies: Art, Design, and Maternity.



 
A Mother Uses Art to Ease Her Sons' Pandemic Fears

If you could use something inspiring and hopeful, take a minute to watch this beautiful New Yorker video about photographer Elisabetta Zavoli, and the work she’s been making with her two sons in the garden at night, as a way to work through their collective anxieties during Italy's quarantine, and an opportunity to reconnect with them in the process. The NY Times recently shared this photo essay by conflict photographer Paolo Pellegrin on the choice to stick with his family instead of covering the pandemic, and the work that has resulted. And if you haven't yet, take a look at our recent interview with Amber Dohrenwend, who developed her creative practice during time spent in the apartment with her small children in Tokyo.


Saturday, May 9, 2020

Inappropriate Bodies: Art, Design, and Maternity

Reviewed by Chrissy LaMaster

Rachel Epp Buller begins her introduction in "Inappropriate Bodies: Art, Design, and Maternity" by posing a question to readers: is maternity appropriate? The answer (I don’t think I’m giving anything away here) is both yes and no. “Maternity is both a cultural ideal and a cultural taboo, both appropriate and inappropriate” she writes as she goes on to explain how she and co-editor Charles Reeve went about deciding upon the overarching theme for their book. The result of their effort, 20 texts by practicing artists, designers, curators and academic scholars, is an amazing collection of both essays and conversations and an invaluable addition to the field of maternal studies.

Divided into the three sections of “Body Politics,” “Family Practices,” and “By Design,” one finds scholarly essays interspersed with personal testaments, conversations and interviews. Contributors seek to “examine maternity’s centrality as a defining term of female identity” for all women, regardless of whether or not they have chosen to have children. In addition to Epp Buller herself, featured are many artists, writers, and collectives familiar to the Cultural ReProducers community: Courtney Kessel, Lena Simic, Irene Perez, Jill Miller, Lise Haller Baggesen, Miriam Schaer, and many others. These contributions are significant, thought provoking, and at times inspiring. One piece that stood out to me was a a conversation between the curator, artist, and scholar Natalie Loveless  and "mamactavists" Martina Mullaney (Enemies of Good Art), Christa Donner (Cultural ReProducers), and collaborators Andrea Francke and Kim Dhillon (Invisible Spaces of Parenthood). Many things have changed since that initial conversation, which took place in 2016, from the “#MeToo" movement to the global pandemic that has thrown the complex expectations of working mothers into sharper focus. It is interesting to reflect on the shifts that have taken place and what they may (or may not) mean for mother's rights, mother's bodies, mother artists, maternal studies, and mothers in general. I also appreciate the exchange of letters between Rachel Epp-Buller, Lena Simic and Emily Underwood-Lee for many of the same reasons. "Discussions" like these are rare in most books on maternal art, but it is this collective approach that makes the book engaging to a range of readers, from those seeking scholarly documentation of maternal art practices to any creative person thinking through their own dual labor as artists and caregivers, and perhaps seeking solidarity.

Lise Haller Baggesen, Mothernism, 2013-ongoing. Audio
Installation. Copyright Lise Haller Baggesen
As a feminist and an artist who is interested in a more authentic representation of motherhood within both contemporary art and society in general, I found the book particularly relevant. Although several excellent texts concerning the maternal in contemporary art have been published in recent years, "Inappropriate Bodies" has quickly become my favorite. It is a wonderfully diverse combination of critical theory and personal perspectives. Intentional in its design, it is at once academic and approachable, which allows it to be accessible (and I feel more useful) to anyone interested in issues surrounding the maternal in art. 

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Doreen Balabanoff, Birthing Room conceptual model, bird's
eye view, 2016. courtesy of the artist
"Inappropriate Bodies: Art, Design, and Maternity" is published by Demeter Press,
an independent feminist press committed to publishing peer-reviewed scholarly work, fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction on mothering, reproduction, sexuality and family.

Chrissy LaMaster is an artist currently living in Billings, Montana. Chrissy holds an MFA in Photography and Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from Illinois State University and an MA in Studio Art from Bradley University. Her primary areas of interest and research include the history of photography, gender studies, historical and contemporary representations of motherhood, and the history and theory of craft. Chrissy has experience in teaching, curating, and programming in a variety of arts related settings. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and can be found in both public and private collections.