Negotiated Otherhood
Understanding that my lens is specific to my experience, I am focussing through this work Negotiated Otherhood, the intersection between subjectification, objectification and ambivalence felt by some women who become mothers. Using Carl Roger’s theory of the Ideal Self 1 as the lens in which to situate my inquiry, as well as “Thinking (M)otherwise” 2 , my work aims to deconstruct this transformative time in some woman’s lives. Specifically, the installation deploys spatial domains effected by both projected light and projected soundscapes to construct a contested ground between motherhood and otherhood.
The first domain is a floor projection of manual breast pumps filling and emptying repetitively. The endless repetition represents the ritualized and guarded routine of maternal care.
The second domain has the pumps acting as speakers. They project sounds that are intentionally open-ended, and ambiguous. Sounds understood as subjective and not necessarily connected to the maternal collective. For many woman once they become mothers they lose the connection with the person they were before. The open-ended nature of the soundscape implies the inability to reconnect to their former subjectivity.
Through the projected imagery of the breast pumps repetitively filling, the alure of the liminal whispers from the “lantern speakers”, and the interaction with the artifact, the viewer is provoked to equally wrestle with the ramifications of motherhood and how it can affect a female experience within this role.
1 According to the Humanistic Psychologist Carl Rogers, the personality is composed of the Real Self and the Ideal Self. Your Real Self is who you are, while your Ideal Self is the person you want to be. The Ideal Self is an idealized version of yourself created out of what you have learned from your life experiences, the demands of society, and what you admire in your role models.
2 Natalie Loveless, New Maternalisms, Curatorial Statement: “Thinking (m)otherwise means remaining attentive to webs of material-semiotic enmeshment that tack back and forth between labour, affect, autobiography, and embodiment. This is, I argue, a very powerful place from which to investigate any social and ecological ethics organized around care. What might we gain by taking seriously the remaking of selves and practices demanded by motherhood? “
Videos
Negotiated Otherhood 2022, video clip of floor projection
Negotiated Otherhood 2022, video of breast pump speaker # 1
Negotiated Otherhood 2022, video of breast pump speaker # 2
Negotiated Otherhood 2022, video of the installation.