An ABC of Art, Birth and Care.

Motherhood is a theme that stands at the core of life, but has nevertheless been kept in the private sphere for a long time, haunted by clichés, stigmas and myths. Motherhood has always been seen as trivial, not as a subject for real art. At the same time, artists with a womb have faced the cliché that they had to decide between making art or having a child, as both would take up all the mother’s time and energy.

Mothering Myths unravels these clichés, stigmas and myths, through the lens of art, and a transhistorical and intersectional perspective, while being very playful and open to many interpretations. It breaks through the perspective of the individual mother figure and makes space for collectivity, different forms of ‘mothering’ and political questions surrounding self-determination. Mothering Myths presents the emancipatory nature of the artist-mother, the voluntarily childless woman, the non-female mother and the ‘raven mother’, through concepts such as kinship, revolutionary parenting, womb consciousness and reproductive justice.

Editors/authors: Laurie Cluitmans & Heske ten Cate

Contributors: Rosemarie Buikema, Laurie Cluitmans & Heske ten Cate, Trudy Dehue, Babs Gons, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Camille Henrot, bell hooks, Bart Rutten, Lisa Smit, Lily van der Stokker, Taka Taka, and many others

Design: Bart de Baets