CONVERSATION: Artist Mothers. How to change the world?
Miranda Zarzycka: How would you describe the ‘Artist Mothers’ (Matki twórczynie) project in a few words to bring out its essence?
Agnieszka Strzeżek: We are committed to giving visibility to women who have a degree in the arts and are mothers. As a group called Artist Mothers, we want to encourage and support individuals to pursue creative careers while highlighting the specific needs and limitations mothers face. In addition to increasing their profile, we strive to conduct research, tell the story of women who have chosen a creative path and have childcare responsibilities, and improve their situation. Artists who are mothers run the risk of being overlooked and not being able to develop their careers in the same way as women who do not have this experience.
Agata Klepka: Mothers who disappear. I would also add the creation of a community to our list of goals.
Aleksandra Wiechowska: What started the process that is now embodied in the project’s name, Artist Mothers?
A.S.: I think mine began when I began to transform into a mother, that is, the moment I received the news of my pregnancy, perhaps a little earlier or a little later. The experience of motherhood became the subject of my final project at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, in which I documented the first year after the birth of my child. The work records the time and how I processed my emotions during that first year. The project was also embedded in the context of my identity, my feminist views, and the political situation in Poland at the time (2020 marked the tightening of the abortion law). It was then that I realised that this was a subject I did not want to hide at home, namely the change of the archetype of a woman who is no longer a girl and is perceived in a particular way. I wondered what the story of women no longer being objects of desire might look like. I remember talking to Sylwia Walczowska-Rojewska about the Polish, slightly derogatory word baba, which is sometimes used to refer to women. ‘Who is this baba?’ I asked myself. In the very beginning, when we started to develop our community, we got a lot of unifying energy from Sylwia. She was the one who started the Facebook group ‘Creative Individual, A Mother’ (Matka – jednostka twórcza). At that time, I often met with girls I knew from the Academy who had just become mothers. I would talk to them, and in those conversations, I realised how vital the new experience of their changed bodies and the desire to create art was for them. We were all looking for similar qualities in our relationship with other women who were mothers and longing to cherish our identities as artists.
A.K.: The Artist Mothers project came to me when my son was two years old. At that time, I felt a deep need to exercise my right to self-determination and see where I was and how I felt. I realised how much had changed in the previous two years, even though I had naively believed that having a baby would not change anything. I began looking for a way to talk about motherhood and process this transformative experience. I wanted to notice myself and perhaps symbolically reclaim my narrative. I knew Aga was working in this area and was very impressed. I was moved by what she was doing. I sent her a voice message saying: ‘Aga, why don’t we do something together?’ and Aga’s quick reply was that she had spoken to Sonia recently about the same thing and that we should do it.
Sonia Jaszczyńska: In the beginning we worked in a larger group, but not all of us found the strength and space to continue. And this is also the justification for my role and participation because, as we reflected later, lack of time is inherent to the situation of young mothers who, in addition to caring for their children, also work and often do not have the opportunity to do some additional activities that are not directly related to caring or earning money. As I am not a mother, I have more space and time for this project. We agreed that there was a great need to get together with other women and talk about what Agnieszka was discussing. I thought I could respond to that need. I thought it was very important and wanted to support the process.
A.W.: Can you tell us about the idea of the residency, where it came from, and how you have put it into practice?
A.S.: The idea for the Artist Mothers project did not initially involve a residency. First we wanted to create a publication, hold meetings and do joint activities related to the theme. At the time, I had signed up for a portfolio consultation with Joanna Synowiec and when we met I asked her if she would like to help us produce this publication. We talked about it at length; she had a lot of ideas and I could see that she was very committed to the subject. Later I attended the Artist as a Professional Summer School, where Magda Komornicka suggested that she could put us in touch with Anna Galas-Kosil from the Warsaw Observatory of Culture, who was planning to research parents working in creative professions. But how did the idea for the residency itself come about?
A.K.: We started by writing down the needs and burning issues. We looked for a structure that could respond to them. We talked a lot about how difficult it is to find time for creative work when you are a mother.
S.J.: As a group, not yet called Artist Mothers, we met for the first time at the Prze-świt Collective Cultural Institution in Warsaw. Some of us came with our children and we talked about what we wanted to do, what our needs were, what was possible and what the challenges were. Many people wanted to come together to do creative work in a community. As Agata said, this lack of time and availability became a challenge. I came across Lenka Clayton’’s Artist Residency in Motherhood and read about her concept of home residencies. Together we decided that this was what we needed.
M.Z.: Could you tell us about Lenka Clayton’s concept and how you have implemented it in your residencies?
S.J.: Lenka Clayton is an active British-American artist who used to participate in traditional residencies. When she became a mother, it became clear that the way she had been practising her art could no longer continue in this form. She decided to recreate the structure of a residency in her own home, with the help of mentors, finding funding to work from home and caring for her son so that she could devote time to creating. Lenka Clayton’s idea is based on three pillars: structure, time and external engagement. We thought this was a perfect way to both motivate people to work and provide a creative space for that work. We thought about what kind of support the group should get to motivate them and enable them to work creatively. The first idea was to invite tutors to support the group, and this is how our collaboration with Joanna Synowiec and Jaśmina Wójcik began. Secondly, we felt that the question of financial support for the participants was essential, because young mothers who divide their time between childcare and paid work cannot be expected to take part in the activities we propose for free. If we are asking for commitment, we must offer financial support in addition to the various other elements of support we can offer. In this regard, we approached Anna Galas-Kosil of the Warsaw Observatory of Culture with a request for support. We also felt giving the project a structure and a framework was important. The participants knew in advance the start and end dates of the residency programme and all its elements, which made it easier for them to decide whether they could take part. I think this is very important for young parents as their days are very much subordinated to the rhythm of their child’s life and organised hourly. The innovation we proposed was to work in tandems to maintain the community between one meeting and the next, that is, during the actual homestay, or residency, as we called it. I created a set of rules to facilitate this contact. The idea was that there should be one person close to your process who would check in to see how you’re doing, if you need help with something or if you need to be heard. We did not have high expectations for this part of the collaboration and yet it turned out to be great. All the residents said that this process was a source of immense satisfaction for them, gave them a sense of closeness and importance and served as a reminder that they were in a process, even though everyday life can be overwhelming at times. There are responsibilities that pull a young mother in different directions. We made sure there was someone there to remember them, call them and lend a helping hand. And I think that was nice. Is that the right word?
A.K.: It was essential and nurturing.
A.W.: What worked in the residencies?
A.K.: We started with a similar pattern of experiences. This allowed us to bond and form a group of people who felt safe around each other and strongly needed to do something together.
A.S.: The group formed organically, which is also important in this story. We did not organise an open call for participants. It was not an invitation from an institution to take part in a residency as a kind of reward for being somehow unique or visible in the art market.
S.J.: We had a plan. We invited a babysitter to look after the children. We made sure everyone was fed, hydrated and planned breaks. The children went to the playroom and we had a time when the tutor could tell us about her practice, how she combines creativity and care, and her inspirations. Later, each participant was asked to briefly present her project, an important issue she wanted to address (or at least try to address) during this residency. What happened was something completely different, very inspiring but also intense. Instead of a fifteen-minute presentation of their work, the women began to talk not only about their whole creative practice and how motherhood had influenced and often interrupted it, but also about the different challenges they faced, some very intimate, difficult or borderline. Most of us did not know each other very well and we sat together for hours just getting to know each other from an incredible perspective of intimacy. Quite by chance, because it was not something we planned, we got close to each other through experiences at the intersection of parenthood and creativity. In other words, stories about the desire to be creative, the difficulties of parenthood and co-parenting, and loneliness in general…
A.S.: There were also many stories about the body…
S.J.: About loss and grief…It was incredible for us that it turned out we had so much to tell each other and needed to.
A.S.: Also, that the need was so pressing!
S.J.: We realised that when we create a moment to tell our story, it cannot be stopped once the stream starts flowing. This experience convinced us that this is extremely important and worth working on, listening to and turning into a process.
A.S.: I think we all approached this very seriously and with remarkable commitment, which helped to break down some walls. We did not judge or categorise anyone; everyone was welcomed into the group.
A.K.: We felt wanted and seen. The space of the Rotating House of Culture surprised us. The tiny house proved to be conducive to real intimacy. The openness of one person encouraged others to open up and allowed us to reflect on each other’s stories, find commonalities and relate.
A.S.: Initially it was assumed that Joanna Synowiec would be the person to consult what each of the participants had shown us. In the end this was not the case. Every time a person talked about their process and told us what they were going through, they were supported by other participants. And one of you picked it up, and what happened was that, in this case, the participants were all people who could respond with immense empathy to what they were hearing. We decided to discuss this at the next meeting, agree on the boundaries of emotional safety and perhaps consider providing psychological support in a process like this.
A.W.: Are you planning another version of the residency?
A.S.: We are constantly seeking ways to develop this project and the group. We are contacting institutions in the hope that we can provide further support for the group. We would also like to create a full-time residency for others in a similar situation. We suspect that it was not just a need for us Artist Mothers, most of whom were studying graphic design at the Academy of Fine Arts at the same time. I think it is a huge need that affects many people working in or entering the creative market in Poland. We are looking for structure, institutional support and funding, because without these elements it is simply impossible to carry out such a large project, not least because of the specific needs of the people we are trying to help. We do not want to burden them with yet another obligation, which would be to attend meetings or take part in a residency for free…
S.J.: …In a place that is not child-friendly, for example. In thinking about how to support a group whose members have childcare responsibilities and creative work, we wanted to find solutions that would sit somewhere at the intersection of a childcare centre combined with community creative work. We would like to create a place where professionals and mothers could look after children, make their art and meet other artists, perhaps over the weekend. This would allow us to wait for more favourable circumstances to repeat the residency and do something for parents who are artists, something on a smaller scale but still allowing them to work and be with their children.
A.W.: What happened at the residency is very important; it cemented the formation of the Artist Mothers group and translated it into further collaboration. One of the results was an exhibition at the Rotating House of Culture, which ran from 26 May to 1 June this year. The most interesting observation about the process around this exhibition and your activities is the comparison of the two manifestos from the time of the preparation and the exhibition’s opening. I feel that the first alludes to the difficulty of being a mother and an artist at the same time, while the second is a vivid expression of the awareness of one’s position and the needs one feels. Am I reading this correctly?
S.J.: Yes, what you say makes a lot of sense. It is exciting because I had not noticed it myself. The first text about the exhibition was an attempt to collect the statements of many people about their expectations of the exhibition, how they thought it would help them and what they wanted to achieve. Later, when we started to select the works to be exhibited, we found that we had to make a different statement, in a perhaps complementary way by shifting to a position of agency and speaking the language of demands regarding the position of young mothers in the art market. Children and their work played a vital role in our exhibition. Usually mothers are not taken seriously in the art community.
A.S.: The art world seems to find them unattractive.
S.J.: Their work is not something you would expect to see in an art space, any more than you would expect to see children. Of course, this is changing, thanks to the Radical Parenting exhibition 1 1 Exhibition at the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok (17 November 2023 – 21 January 2024). ↩︎, for example. Quite apart from the fact that these things are not expected, those who see parenthood as a place of creative interest are shamed. For some unfathomable reason, the experience of motherhood and childcare is not considered a universal experience. The experience of first romantic love or death, bereavement or war is universal. In contrast, the experience of pregnancy, childbirth and childcare is suddenly very private, belonging to the personal sphere. I think it is less about shame and more about embarrassment, and we have reflected that we can and want to talk about it now.
A.S.: We understand that the reception of this exhibition could be diminished by the fact that a narrative about children’s art or early motherhood, a narrative about caring, could be read as something unimportant, ‘domestic’, something of low aesthetic and substantive quality. This is something that serious people should not be concerned with, because they are involved with art, they are concerned with science, they are concerned with the world of deep thoughts and ideas. I think it is revolutionary that we disagree with that. I mean, I am sure it has been said many times, but it is still revolutionary because it has not yet penetrated mainstream thinking.
S.J.: There is an art about motherhood that may deserve to be called “universal”, but which is sometimes very far removed from children and housework.
A.S.: I am still thinking about our first meeting during the exhibition, where you talked about Lenka’s stay. We discussed that this story comes from the middle of the experience of early motherhood and that few such stories have been told. Motherhood is a subject that is often talked about by adult children, and it is mainly seen from that perspective, and many of these adult children’s voices talk about their mothers. We realised that it is possible to be a man, an artist, who writes about his mother, and it is fine, it is widely accepted, and…
A.K.: …and common. But where is the first-person perspective told by “I, a mother”? What does that voice sound like, telling the story and taming it? What happens deep inside mothers? How can mothers regain their subjectivity?
A.S.: Mothers of small children.
S.J.: As you said, there are not many stories told from the mother’s perspective, and this is exacerbated by the challenges we mentioned, namely lack of time or isolation. It seemed to us that by creating the right conditions and a welcoming community, we could offer women the opportunity to come out of their isolation and speak for themselves, to be the first-person narrator telling the story of the core of the first years of motherhood.
A.S.: You have done a very good job of mapping the statements that refer to this aspect. The texts that you collected at the reading meeting we had 2 2 Reading event “Reading Motherhood and Care” as part of the accompanying events for the Favourite Bookshop of Warsaw Competition, 5 September 2024 at Wrzenie Świata. ↩︎, texts written since the late 1960s and onwards, speak of a very similar experience.
S.J.: One example is The Mother/Child Papers by Alicia Ostriker.
A.S.: Or the one about the art of nurturing.
S.J.: That’s right, Manifesto For Maintenance Art by Mierle Ukeles.
A.S.: It is worth saying that there are texts like this one, that these ideas have already been voiced, but that they are individual voices, and I think that is exactly how this issue is being treated overall. I want to say that certain individual artists have the right to work with the theme of maintenance art and are accepted in the art world, but this issue is not yet clear as a whole or as a group. Sonia wrote in the exhibition statement that this power is more significant than the tiny house in which it is housed. It was more important from the beginning when we first met there. There is so much of everything – our emotions, experiences, stories – that we should no longer hide or hold back. Let us flood the world with them.
Warsaw Observatory of Culture, 20.06.2024
