Maternar

de Delphine Tomes, Ana Andrade, Alejandra Labastida, Helena Chávez Mac Gregor

The patriarchal construction of maternity is held by such efficient cultural, social, political and economical structures that they submerge the ones who experiment it into a sort of Stockholm Syndrome. In this way, the patriarchy ensures its survival and allows for an acritic reproduction of its system. Mothering. Between Stockholm Syndrome and Acts of Production strives to question these dynamics. This publication and the homonymous exhibition look towards thinking of maternity as a concept disputed in many fronts; through this perspective, we aim to propose a concept of mothering as an act of caring and nurturing, beyond a biological or ontological condition.. "Historically, the art that represents motherhood has been made under the bias of the male gaze. The women who appear within it tend to be archetypes of love, sacrifice, dedication, fertility and sometimes madness. Of course, there are cases of women artists who have been a forceful presence since the sixties, not only as mothers but also by placing motherhood within their practice to produce another kind of visibility. Louise Bourgeois, Lea Lublin, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Mary Kelly and the group Polvo de Gallina Negra, to name but a few, began to open the way, hand in-hand with feminism, problematising representations of the domestic and questioning the definitions of artistic productivity by women." -Page 121.