With the exhibition focusing a lot on parent and child relationships, we had the idea of looking at the show through this dynamic. In this booklet you can read what some artist who have work in the show think about their artist/ parent role.
We also asked artist Lady Kitt and their children to learn about the show and to come up with a way of exploring the content of the exhibition together. This booklet is one of the outcomes. It contains some of the transcribed dialogue between Lady Kitt and Ada who is ten years old. Kitt’s older child, Finn, listened to the conversation and picked out ideas for the illustrations, which they then created to accompany the text.
In this booklet sometimes Kitt and Ada have been merged into one voice as we thought it would be fun if you played a game trying to guess who might have said what!
You can also write, draw, doodle and colour in this booklet, or work on bits of paper if there is not enough space for all your ideas, thoughts, questions and answers!
about the MOTHEROTHER
Can art be funny?
Who laughs at art jokes?
Who's the artwork made for?
Is it for the adults? Is it for the children?
Is it only for other artists?
Who even knows who Marina Abramovic is?
Do people who aren’t artists care if art is made by mum artists or other people artists?
Who buys art about mums?
Who has the power?
Are we allowed to touch the art?
Does the art smell?
Is the art loud or dark?
What art can make things different?
How much should/could/would parents get paid for being parents?
Is this art just all about women?
Is it okay for artists to make art about their children?
Is it okay for artists to make art with their children?
Do the babies in the art get credit?
Do the babies in the art get paid?
Are the babies in the art sad to be in art about it being hard to be a parent?
Are we allowed to feel relaxed in the gallery?
Can art about good ideas be bad art?
Can bad art still say good things about ideas?
How long did it take to make this art?
Is that art that takes longer to make better art?
Do parents have less time to make art than people who aren’t parents?
Do some artists have other reasons why they might not have lots of time to make art?
Did anything in this exhibition make you cry? How would you feel about art making you cry? What’s wrong with exhibitions? What’s missing from this exhibition?
Is it okay for artists to make art about their children?
Yeah, that’s a good question. As I am your child, I wouldn’t say
We’ve talked quite a lot about the fact that there are babies in some of the artwork in the exhibition. I think the parent should make the decision, because the baby obviously can’t talk and make decisions.
I’d say about age 10, you would probably have to ask them, because what if they don’t want it and then their friend goes to the exhibition and says: “that was art made about you”, and they are like “Oh, my God, I didn’t know that”. It might be exciting, but they might also hate it. You know, they might also be like, “I don’t want any art about me”.
You need to ask if someone wants their name credited. If they want to be paid, which is a big thing, because with a child with that amount of money, they can go absolutely bonkers. Oh, that’s so interesting! Thinking the child should be paid for their labour, but also thinking about maybe paying them too much. I went a little bit of bonkers when you gave my money because I just went to H&M!
How much the child can do. If they are at school, they might not be able to do as much. Making sure it doesn’t interfere with other things in their life. And, what if parents make artwork with their children, then it’s out in the world, and in 10 years time a gallery says, “Oh, I really like that artwork you’ve made. Can we have it in the exhibition?”. Is it okay for the parent to just be like, “yes, that’s okay? The parent can just be like, “yeah”, because art is not very well paid sometimes. If they need the money: “yeah!”.
I’m not fan of this to be honest. I don’t like this because it’s not saying: “don’t do this”. It’s basically saying “yeah, we can do this, I’ve got all my fancy clothes on: just smoke”. While you’re pregnant that’s not good for the baby. This picture comes with another picture. A woman holding a baby a bit like an American football, hands out. It’s basically just saying “eeew, get off me”.
And that when people are pregnant, they should look after their bodies in certain ways. And that maybe there are a lot of expectations about what it’s like to be a parent, especially maybe a mum. Expectations what people should and shouldn’t do. And maybe we should have a little scrummage around in those and think about which ones are actually useful and which ones might be rubbish.
Kübra Müjde:
“Contrary to the decline I had envisioned in my artistic career a er becoming a mother, there has been serious and exciting progress. My work ‘For I am here, I am naked, I stand in front of you and I am dancing! Do you have nothing to say?’, symbolising the power of women, was raised as a flag on Newcastle Castle, and my piece ‘Sleeping Girl’ was proudly exhibited
Lauren McLaughlin:
“I became a mother at the age of 20 and raised my son (who’s now 19) as a single parent so I have been mothering for the entirety of my art career. I found the art world - especially back thento be notoriously unkind and unsupportive to parents, coupled with a complete lack of value for any artwork which explores maternal experiences; especially from a working class perspective. The constant ba le to remain in the industry, to keep producing art, to be taken seriously, to be listened to, and for my work to be shown made me feel incredibly isolated
at the Open Submission 2024 at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. These wonderful developments have incredibly motivated me. Life has become much richer and more colourful thanks to my son Albert, who is about to turn one. I’m drawing very detailed sketches every moment he is asleep and I use a room I’ve transformed into a studio at home to paint.”
but ultimately led me to found Spilt Milk. I hoped to connect with other artists who were m/others, and were making work about these invisible experiences, and I wanted to create a bigger platform for these artists to be seen. In doing so, I’ve connected with an international community of other artists who inspire and support me. It is incredibly encouraging to see increased visibility and support for artists m/others in recent years, and many wonderful examples of how an open dialogue and the right support structures can ensure more artist m/others can move forward in their careers.”
Kate Sweeney
“My practice is concerned directly with ideas about heritage in the context of queer and adoptive families, exploring how relations are formed beyond the materials and myths of blood and DNA. My work utilises moments and materials from the everyday to focus upon the way bodies share information, feelings and histories. Since the isolation of lockdown, which coincided with the arrival of my son, I have been using my practice to help me find language and shape to my role as a parent.
It is a slow unfolding process of portrait making; searching in the margins and looking in the mirror for the adoptive mother’s body. I make inks and drawing materials from my intimate environment. Like producing maternal breast-milk and the act of breast-feeding, these
Sarah Maple
“I have always been primarily motivated by my interest in feminism. Early in my practice, I focused on people’s disdain or lack of interest in it. When I had a child, it reiterated further how subjects relating to the female experience are o en labelled ‘other’ or unimportant. I was told by a
inks and the drawings and writings I make with them are pre-lingual forms and rituals of communication – they are tools to speak through before the words come.
Becoming a parent has been transformative on a spiritual and creative level. It has forced me to compartmentalise my practice; I have less time to do more things and so have begun to reflex a previously unused ‘hyper-focus’ muscle to work with a new urgency and focus. The right to be a mother has been something I have had to justify, persuade and doggedly pursue into existence. It has been a physical, visceral, bodily experience that has fundamentally changed me. My work now seeks to explore and a est to these experiences and transformations.”
friend that work about Motherhood would be ‘boring’ and ‘alienating’ to my audience. Since then, I have been trying to disprove this. I aim to highlight that whether you have a child or not – the experience of care (giving or receiving) is universal and should be recognised.”
Hannah Cooke
“Going into the public eye with my video works almost felt like an outing. I knew I had to create these videos, but at the same time I feared I would sideline myself. Looking back, everything felt very existential for me, though the hormones might have played a part in this as well. Surprisingly, these works have opened a new access to the art world, have opened new doors for me. Colleagues reached out to tell me their stories, I was able to build a strong network that is interested in the same questions of equality and support for one another.
Through these works, my personal perspective on what is important as well as my art practice was strengthened. I’m not worried any more of ge ing the “mother artist” stamp and losing my underlying, critical view of current systems in the process. The years have shown me that my artistic focus stayed the same. I’m not saying that my role as a mother won’t be part of future pieces, but in general I’m interested in questions and topics that are critical of society as it is. Having my daughter and an artistic career has sharpened my view and made the priorities more clear. There is no room for bullshit anymore.”
“I am a mother to a 5-year-old girl called Alma. When Alma was born it spurred one of my most productive periods of making during my career as an artist. This was in part enabled by my maternity leave being immediately proceeded by a twoyear Leverhulme Fellowship – an application for which I submi ed shortly before giving birth to Alma. This fellowship meant I could step back from my role as an academic and lecturer and devote the hours
Alma spent at nursery to making new work. I found the experience of being pregnant, giving birth and caring for a small child at home radically reconfigured my understanding of space, time and my environment. As a sculptor, I found this new perspective on the principal coordinates that give form to sculpture, inspiring and I felt compelled to make work about my new experience, my relationship with my daughter and the outside world.”
Katie Cuddon
I don’t think art should always be happy. Sometimes it’s about something sad, or serious. I think I would like there to be a bit more happy art in the world. Also cheeky, mischievous, playful, kinds of art. I think that there’s too much depressing art in the world.
There’s quite a lot of sad stuff in the world that people need to express, talk about, think about. I like art that gifts – that offers solutions, art that says “maybe things could be different and maybe they could be different in this way.” I think that’s exciting and it makes me feel quite hopeful going to see art that’s like that.
I think it can. It is allowed to be funny, but sometimes you don’t want it to be funny or it’s not about a funny subject.
It could be funny. Couldn’t be funny. You never know. Unless you read about the art, but I think that thing about different people
Some people might think, “why would someone put a funny thing in this, which only artists will understand?”
No, if you explain a joke, it’s not funny.
I think the people who have the least power are people who actually put the art in exhibitions. Because if people don’t like it, they can post on their social media accounts, “this is the worst exhibition, don’t go and see it.” and the people who make the art can’t do anything about that. When you say the people, who might post on social media? The audience.
I think it’s the people who do the funding for it. Because they can say to the people who own the building, “no, I don’t want this art in this space.” But if they say “yes” to people who own that building, now they have control because they can be – if they see some art that they don’t like that was meant to be an exhibition – they could be like, “no, this isn’t going in the exhibition”.
When I’m thinking about this, I’m thinking maybe there’s somebody else as well. So there’s venues or organisations who might decide to have an exhibition around a certain theme, but then often, there’s a is a person who then decides what the art is that goes into that exhibition. So that might be a curator or a programmer. For this exhibition, that’s Sue.
So, the funders; and then the people who own the place, the space and venue; then it’s the art director; then it’s the audience; then the people who put the art in space also known as the artist. It is the artists at the bottom!
I think in some ways, yes. But also in some ways, no.
Yes, because you have more time and thought to put into it. You put more time and effort into it, and you’re probably doing it slower and more careful, more details, or more little perfections. Everything’s right, you know? Maybe not everything. Because no-one can get everything perfect.
If you spend more time on it, it could just be an absolutely humongous piece. But you just rush it all. So you can get all of it done. Even though you have loads of time, even though it takes longer to make, because it’s absolutely humongous. But you just rush everything and it looks crap in the end.
Yeah. It can be small but all the little details can be done. Or it can be big. And it can just be easy, but it can be really, really good.
Sometimes, if they have the responsibilities or a younger child, or if they’re a single parent, they might not have enough time. But if their child is older…I suppose you probably do have more time as they get older. You might not always.
It’s not just the time that you spend looking after your children at that moment, it’s also all the time that maybe you’ve missed out on doing your job when children have been younger or when you’ve had more intense caring responsibilities of every kind.
I think what’s missing is something that younger children would like. I think something more fun, something less dark. When you say dark?...Sad…most children probably aren’t interested or don’t want that. I think it’s maybe something more colourful, more bright, something that tells the story a bit easier, or something that’s just a bit less sad, so children can also enjoy the exhibition.
children would be attracted to them? Yeah. I always like exhibitions and artworks that have an opportunity for people to join in or contribute to them in some way or comment on them. I really like exhibitions that have artworks that are themselves join-in-able. I would say that basically every exhibition I love there is some artwork where I can get more involved than just looking at it.
Some of the stuff that I think is really good about the MOTHEROTHER exhibition make makes me think about how bad it is in a lot of other exhibitions. Stuff like having some days where there’s people around to look after children and activities for children. To me, that’s a such a brilliant thing, that I’ve never seen any other exhibition offer. I think that’s really exciting and really nice.
One of the things that I think is wrong with lots of exhibitions is not enough seats. Not enough places to sit down and rest my little arthritic legs. Not having lifts or ramps for disabled people, for all sorts of people who use wheels. Buggies as well. Sometimes exhibitions say they’re family friendly, but they’re not. When they say family friendly, they probably mean like adults and older children. They don’t mean tiny people, so tiny people don’t have anything fun to do. I think totally differently. I think when stuff says “family friendly” often it’s tiny children….
