'The work in Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity aims to challenge long held stereotypes and sentimental views of motherhood. Set against a backdrop of the seemingly insatiable appetite for pictures of celebrity mums, streams of Instagram bumps and babies and a history of the Madonna motif in art history, the work here addresses changing conditions of power, gender, domesticity, the maternal body and familial relations. It is a critical space for the representation of mothers to exist aside from more reductive cultural assumptions of mothering.'
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Hanna Putz, Untitled, (LL1), 2012 © Hanna Putz
This exhibition opens today at the Photographers' Gallery in London, with an accompanying exhibition on the theme of motherhood and loss (sob) at the Foundling Museum. Looking through the preview gallery for the main exhibition I see a combination of really beautiful photographs of mothers and motherhood (Elinor Carucci's The First Week literally took my breath away, for obvious reasons) and a fair bit of conceptual work, which isn't exactly my bag, but I'm really looking forward to going to both. It's been a while since I wrote a Things I've Done in London post (because I haven't been doing owt) so maybe I'll reprise that series once I've been!
"Set against a backdrop of the seemingly insatiable appetite for pictures of celebrity mums, streams of Instagram bumps and babies" - I feel like that statement alone is worthy of being printed and framed.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been to an exhibition since I had my baby 6 months ago. Sounds like the perfect place to (re)start after wondering many times if "me" would still be "me" when I would become a mother (still figuring that and many other questions out). Thank you for the recommendation.
ReplyDeleteThe Foundling Museum is profoundling moving, hopefully someone from the museum will be there to give the already great exhibits some extra colour for you, but it is very, very worth the visit.
ReplyDeletethis looks wonderful, going to check it out... so if you see a bedraggled new mum pushing very chatty boy/girl twins around please say hello.
ReplyDeletealso, I read your breastfeeding post again - had read it at the time but this was long before I had twins myself. So much more appreciated now even, as I struggled through really really similar stuff with my 2, and only made it to 7 weeks (so WELL done for 11!) and felt pretty darn shitty about it the whole way.
still do a bit, does it get easier when you're not surrounded by boob-mums and babes all the time? Mine are only 5 months so hoping so.
OMG congratulations squared! Two babies! At once!
DeleteThis exhibition looks great. I can't wait to go
ReplyDelete