I KNOW A GOOD PLACE TO CRY

“I know a good place to cry” she tells me, “come on, I’ll show you”. This excerpt is from a conversation I had last night, about the first day of our children’s day care. I was attending the opening of Mathilde Duus’ solo show TRØST at Bricks Gallery in Blågårdsgade, Copenhagen with my baby who found a friend to play with, and whose mother I therefore ended up talking to most of the evening.

My Mio is turning one this month, and on Monday he will begin his new life as a child of the institution. It’s terrifying. But this article is not about my fear of letting go, separation anxiety, or any such thing. This article is about all the powerhouse mamas I’ve met in the arts since I myself became a mother, exactly one year ago.

During a talk with artists Ida Retz Wessberg and Sophia Handler which I hosted at the finissage of my exhibition Memoirs of the Abyss at SixtyEight Art Institute in 2021, we touched upon the history of mental illness, gendered conventions that dominate societal approaches to sickness and healthcare, the influence of hormones on human bodies and psyches, as well as the absence of structures in work life that can adapt to the cycle of the female body. I rounded off the talk announcing my pregnancy, and back then it was very early but I was overwhelmed with the news and therefore felt the urge to share it. After a toast and a lot of celebratory hugs and words, I went to the bathroom and noticed that someone was following me. It was an artist colleague, who came up to me and said: I know exactly how you feel. Since that day we’ve been hanging out, discussing how to navigate the system as art workers and “vulnerable pregnant”, as the system coined us.

“The truth is, I feel, what it actually means to become a “perfect parent”, is to realize that it takes a fucking village, and that kind for care cannot be bought.”

As if, all pregnant women are not vulnerable… Nevertheless, it’s been worth much more than words can tell, to have this co-mom by my side, all the way through pregnancy and the first year with our babies. We have shared everything from birth stories and wine to the concerns that follow when you suddenly stop having sex with your partner or when you realize that you have automatically become part of the extreme consumer society that capitalism produces directed towards new parents.

If I could buy anything that would make me become the perfect mother, I would do it without hesitating. The truth is, I feel, what it actually means to become a “perfect parent”, is to realize that it takes a fucking village, and that kind for care cannot be bought.

How not to exclude artist parents
A few weeks ago, we went together to a morning lecture organized by Overgaden – Institute of Contemporary Art and UKK, hosted by the library in Christianshavn, which was good because they have an elevator which Overgaden unfortunately do not have (yet). The event was titled after the book by Hettie Judah, who was touring Europe and talking about “How not to exclude artist mothers (and other parents)”.

Hettie Judah. Christianshavn’s Library, 2023. Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

I had already been virtually introduced to Hettie through the director at Von Bartha Gallery (located in the Carlsberg area of Copenhagen) Mamie Beth. Mamie connected us prior to Hettie’s arrival because she knew I was working on similar topics within my startup Kunst på Barsel offering arts and culture to parents and babies on parental leave. My mission is to prevent that parents feel lonely and isolated, by creating a safe space for mothers, fathers and others to gather and reflect on how it feels to be in the world, to create life and care for each other. I feel like art is the best meeting place for conversations like this, and decided to organize museum tours, studio visits and meetings with authors for parents and babies every once a week.

“My mission is to prevent that parents feel lonely and isolated, by creating a safe space for mothers, fathers and others to gather and reflect on how it feels to be in the world, to create life and care for each other.”

Hettie Judah is a MUST READ – and in case you are reading this with a baby hanging on you somewhere – the wise words of this woman can also be listened to through many different podcasts. Hopefully soon, a Danish producer will also invite her in, because what she works with is so incredibly important. I imagine Jupiter Child who is also a powerhouse parent and artworker could be an interesting conversation partner.

I experienced Jupiter on March 8th at Det Lilla Rum, during an event curated by Meter and Det Lilla Rum, where they gave a performance lecture touching upon parenting, pre-colonial Africa, danskhed, rugbrød, racism and kommunekaffe, gender, queerness and sisterhood. They even shared their own story of their first birth in a Danish hospital, and how caring this experience had felt. It left me with tears in my eyes reminiscing my own recent experience of delivery at Hvidovre Hospital with the most professional, warm and respectful midwives.

Jupiter Child. Photo: Lotte Løvholm.

Jupiter Child. Det Lilla Rum in collaboration with Meter. Copenhagen, 2023. Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

Back to Hettie Judah, who on a Sunny day in Copenhagen, February 14th generously elaborated on her research behind the book “How not to exclude artist mothers (and other parents)” with an audience paying much attention despite babies playing around. This research has already influenced my curatorial work to an extent where I have designated a whole room of my current group exhibition “Bodies of Water” at CCA Andratx to include a nursing room according to the recommendation of the UN.

In a slide on her presentation the author rhetorically asks:

“What is the art world’s problem with mothers?
It starts with a ‘mother shaped hole’ in art history.”

I guess we can all recall historical paintings of mother and child, but they are most often painted by men, resembling a representation created from, with and for an othering-gaze. In another slide Judah quotes a strong statement given by performance artist Dyana Gravina:

“I was raised in a society that told me that to make work I needed to give my child to somebody else. Coexsistence wasn’t really mentioned.”

The question of coexistence is what I find interesting, in particular. The challenge: artworld worker meets pregnancy and parenting, is one that I’ve seen and continue to see many people struggle with, most often leading them to give up on one or the other.

Many friends of mine in the arts have decided not to have kids because they do not wish to give up their work, while others have decided to quit art and “take a real job” when starting a family. I myself have been waving in and out of the two different poles, but with Kunst på Barsel I sincerely hope to find my own way of coexistence and inspire my peers to do so.

“When I was an undergraduate student in the 1990s, the mature female students in their thirties and forties were called ‘knitters’ by the male lecturers because they said they weren’t making real art. They also described the full-time female lecturers as ‘part-timers’ because they left work on time to go home to their families. A former colleague of mine as recently as 2014 pointed to a book on my office bookshelf about mother artists and said he always made a point to tell each year group that the girls shouldn’t have children because their careers would be over and they’d have nothing to say anymore.” Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

“What is the Art World’s Problem with Mothers? It starts with a ‘mother shaped hole’ in art history.” Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

During the evening lecture I came to talk with an artist who – like many of the examples presented by Judah – had been away from the art world for many years due to family obligations, and who was now struggling and looking into ways to return. Her and I decided to stay in touch and continue the dialogue on how to navigate an art scene that appears exclusive for the ones who can continuously produce and present an up-to-date CV with no un-explained gaps. I also met a father, who attended the talk interested in similar conflicts of exclusion, and we discussed the lack of imagination many people have when they read an artist’s bio and wonder what this person might have been up to for the past years, since there are no exhibitions recorded. Judah encourages us to remember that artists are still artists even in the years where they do not produce, exhibit or sell works.

“I recall someone asking me what I “did”, and I said “I’m an artist” and they said “how can you be an artist when you don’t make anything and you don’t sell the things you don’t make?” – Rosalind Faram. Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

“Once people found out that I was pregnant, the distancing started happening. There were no conversations: just a lack of communications and offers. I was seen as not creating work or not being able to create work. When I have told people I was creating and I could participate in exhibitions, I was either seen as lying or telling half truths.” – Reza Wahid. Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

A gap in the CV can mean pregnancy, parental leave, illness or a time off from exhibiting in order to focus solely on studio work. It can of course also have many other natural explanations, but at least, it should not per default be seen as something bad if there is a gap in an artist’s CV. Quite contrary; perhaps this person has gained experience in a whole new field that would never have happened in an exhibition context – such as birth, childcare or a money-job of caring for elderly people in order to afford studio costs?

“... we discussed the lack of imagination many people have when they read an artist’s bio and wonder what this person might have been up to for the past years, since there are no exhibitions recorded.”

In her article Full, messy and beautiful Hettie Judah notices how childcare involves a huge amount of physical and mental energy – the logistics of who, what, where, when – that can thus no longer be used for making art.

“Motherhood can also change an artist’s access to space. With less freedom to work, and the financial pressure of a family, many give up their studio while their children are young, and work instead from home. This has an impact on the work, which, through necessity, often becomes smaller – art of a domestic scale historically associated with women artists. Many also switch to media better suited to a few stolen hours: video, sound, photography and even textile work rather than painting. Working from home, too, precludes materials, tools or a messy environment potentially hazardous to a young child.”

In her evening lecture, Judah focuses on how artists get back in to the art world after having spent months or years attending to family work. She shares many examples of how this change of materials, motifs and topics come to manifest in new bodies of work: Ingrid Berthon-Moine, Caroline Walker, Camille Henrot and the early pioneers Mary Kelly and Susan Hiller. In 2013 the artist Lenka Clayton created ARiM: Artist Residency In Motherhood.

You don’t have to apply. It doesn't cost anything, it's fully customisable, and you can be in residence for as long as you choose. You don't even have to travel, the residency takes place entirely inside your own home and everyday life. An Artist Residency in Motherhood is the reframing of parenthood as a valuable site for creative practice, rather than an obstruction to be overcome.

Hettie Judah presenting ARiM: Artist Residency In Motherhood. Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

Artist Residency in Motherhood Customisable Business Cards. Order here.

At the end of the morning lecture, several mothers in the arts amongst the audience started sharing their stories: one of them tells about an opening of a big museum show about female artists to which she (who was exhibiting) was refused to bring her baby, “because the queen was attending”. Another mother colleague contacts me later on through Instagram with screenshots from an email-correspondence she’s had with a Danish TV Production company inviting her to take part in a reality show with contemporary artists but not allowing her to bring her baby, less than one year old. The producer even goes as far as to suggest that the artist mother travels to the location of the production by herself, and then the father and the baby can come to visit a few days, while she’s there alone for more than a week.

I find it insane how these things can happen in 2022/23, and following the talk, we discuss how to create a change that will last beyond the “now”: as one artist puts it; right now we get a lot of attention thanks to our cute little ones, but what happens in a few years when we go through menopause, what kind of exclusion will we then experience from the art world and how do we prepare ourselves for that, how do we care for each other and remember each other in that process? What can we learn from the experiences of becoming parents and surviving in the arts, that can help us navigate other situations of exclusivity and toxic behaviour amongst institutions, galleries, residencies etc.? A lot of questions came up.

“One of them tells about an opening of a big museum show about female artists to which she (who was exhibiting) was refused to bring her baby, “because the queen was attending”. Another mother colleague contacts me later on through Instagram with screenshots from an email-correspondence she’s had with a Danish TV Production company inviting her to take part in a reality show with contemporary artists but not allowing her to bring her baby.”

Is there a day-care connected to the art school for the students who become pregnant while studying, or could it make sense to organize one such among the students themselves? How can we agree on a best practice for inclusive strategies that covers everyone; workers at the museum, artists exhibiting and audience visiting. Who are ready to sign this kind of agreement? Will the funds be welcoming and support extra costs for parents traveling with kids for exhibitions, residencies etc.?

Hettie Judah has created a set of guidelines on how not to exclude artist parents, which is available as open source material here:

An introductory statement: While responsibility for childcare currently falls overwhelmingly on mothers, we are using the word ‘parent’ in these guidelines in the hope that this may change.

An introductory suggestion: Treat the artist as a whole person.

An introductory request: Be flexible.

Number 6 of the guidelines is rather easy to apply: it has to do with the time of the day we organize exhibition openings and other events; most often previews and other important network events takes place during the witching hours, and thus coincides with the “immovable trinity” in every family home; supper, bath and bedtime.

By removing care, all you get is violence
Last week I went to the OIKOS seminar about care and crisis at Copenhagen University. Among many inspiring presentations, the two that made the deepest impression on me was held by Emma Holten and Ida Bencke.

Holten took her starting point in measurability and the de-prioritizing of care in society, economy and in our personal lives. Bencke spoke about planetary and personal exhaustion and curating through sociocracy inspired by the artist Jette Hye Jin Mortensen’s fermentation strategies of coordinating her work after becoming a mother. Finally, Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt gave a talk on “address as care”, in which she mentioned how Lesley-Ann Brown addresses her son in the book “Decolonial daughter – letters from a black woman to her European son”, just as Victor Boy Lindholm addresses his yet unborn daughter in “En del af hjertet går ud af kroppen”. I believe her point was that by abandoning the universal addressee and situating themselves in a personal relation, speaking from somewhere to someone, instead from speaking from anywhere to anyone, it gives the reader a sense of an author taking responsibility for the words they articulate.

This leads me back to Emma Holten’s important message: When measuring and prizing care, you lose relationality (understood as the relation – or entanglement – in-between people).

“By removing care, all you get is violence. The idea of care is here considered from the mother-child relation to the mother country-citizen relation, and back again. When care is removed from decision making, politics becomes based on numbers only; pure measurements, statistics and violent consequences that can end up in (wo)manslaughter.”

She asks herself “Why is it so difficult for me to prioritize selfcare?” and answers: “Because I cannot buy it. I have to practice it together with other people. It demands energy, time, investment on levels less tangible than the financial, which we’re used to spending all day.”

Her talk includes a lot of intermediate results, ranging from ridiculous calculations made by the Danish government predicting healthcare investments as not having an impact on the GDP to the French prime minister Emmanuel Macron’s ambition of France becoming a startup nation. All in all; her statement is clear: By removing care, all you get is violence. The idea of care is here considered from the mother-child relation to the mother country-citizen relation, and back again. When care is removed from decision making, politics becomes based on numbers only; pure measurements, statistics and violent consequences that can end up in (wo)manslaughter.

Emma Holten. Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

Ida Bencke. Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

[content and trigger warning: racism and discrimination described below].

Holten shares a devastating story of a woman who requests a c-section at the hospital while giving birth, but because her knowledge of her own body and her emotions and wishes are not considered valid information by the doctor, she is refused a c-section and ends up dying while giving birth. The woman has yet another disadvantage in her communication with the healthcare staff: She is in a Swedish hospital, but she does not speak fluent Swedish. This aspect of the story points to a racial discrimination on top of the discriminating behaviour that lies already in the fact that she is not being listened to when expressing knowledge of her own body.

“She talks about the vision for Hosting Lands with sentences that still resonate deep within me: Artworks as living practices, facilitators of gathering, co-learning and alliance building.”

In Ida Bencke’s presentation on Hosting Lands – the winning exhibition movement of Bikubenfonden’s Vision prize 2022 – she talks about non-extractive exhibition formats, collaborative models and methods across privileges and the attempt to avoid exhausting oneself and each other in the process of curating. She mentions that the Laboratory of Aesthetics and Ecology will challenge the prevailing status quo of the artworld, by presenting non-spectacular and perhaps “boring” artworks and focus on generative encounters between already existing networks in order to not contribute to the “build up and tear down” and “new content” tendency that has dominated for too long. She talks about the vision for Hosting Lands with sentences that still resonate deep within me: Artworks as living practices, facilitators of gathering, co-learning and alliance building.

Exhibition sites as space holders
It reminds me of the artwork in process I encountered on the day I realized that I was pregnant back in 2021. Deep Forest Art Land Skovsnogen was hosting the artist duo Ida Lundø & Sara Kier who were in the process of developing their Burning Sphere for the Socle du Monde Biennale at HEART.

I stayed overnight in the forest surrounded by artworks and animals in the factory shelter called Produzione. It wasn’t until the fireplace was lit and we all sat there with a glass of orange wine, staring into the flames, that I realized my period was late. Retrospectively I cannot help thinking about the irony that lies in the fact that I was sleeping in a factory, while morphing into a factory myself. The artist behind the shelter John Kørner calls factories the mother buildings of modern culture. Meanwhile, mothers of modern culture are still not credited enough for all the “factory work” they do caring, homing etc. The Mental Load and physical mothering tasks adds immense amount of value to society, but is nevertheless beyond what numbers are able to tell.

In 2018 Deep Forest Art Land hosted the exhibition Motherload, about the liquid state of the mother figure, never restrained to one place or part, always under construction, central to everything. “Motherhood makes a polyphonic and rather powerful choir of voices” the curators Anna Margrethe Pedersen and Ditte Soria wrote in a text in connection to the exhibition.

“Mothers of modern culture are still not credited enough for all the “factory work” they do caring, homing etc. The Mental Load and physical mothering tasks adds immense amount of value to society, but is nevertheless beyond what numbers are able to tell.”

Bencke mentions “artworks as fireplaces and dinner tables to gather around” and that is exactly what Lundø and Kier were working on when I met them: “Burning sphere in the woods” is a living sculpture made from all four elements; soil and water found in the clay, air and fire within the oven. It’s a meeting place for people to meet, eat, cook, talk, educate and speculate. The work back then reminded me of the good old Le Guin quote:

“This belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story: In it, as in all fiction, there is room to keep even Man where he belongs, in his place in the scheme of things; there is time enough to gather plenty of wild oats and sow them too. Still there are seeds to be gathered, and room in the bag of stars.”

Ida Lunden. Det Lilla Rum, 2023. Photo: Meter.

The womb-tomb pair is a topic artist and co-mom Ida Lunden has been working on for quite a while; beautiful castings of take-away boxes, pacifiers and body parts made during a time where she was caring both for her newborn child and her dying father. I experienced her works at Rønnebæksholm, C4 Projects and SMK last year, and currently she is showing at CCA Andratx, Mallorca and in Denmark at Det Lilla Rum curated by meter in collaboration with Assisterende Indsættelser and Det Lilla Rum.

“meter is a fluid curatorial platform that pollinates and reworks other art spaces and cultural institutions. Often working in collaboration with others, the focus is securing a mutually beneficial space for learning across disciplines. At meter curating is performative. It is creating a framework based on care for the artwork and its contextualisation, for the artist and their work. But it is equally important to create a caring space for the audience, for their experience and for the dialogues around art, culture and society. meter is characterised by long curatorial and artistic research projects that allow time and space for immersion.”

This is how meter, run by curator Louise Lassen Iversen, describes themselves online and I must say that their mission feels completed; I tried to come back to Det Lilla Rum later on March 8th to experience “She’s a show” – a water performance by Mette Moestrup og Miriam Karpantschof in connection to Ida Lundens Water Vessel. But the space was sooo full of people that I almost couldn’t get in the door, and therefore decided to go home and celebrate the rest of the international women’s day with my family instead. However, I was streaming the event via Instagram and you can experience more from “She’s a show” here.

“She’s a show is a feminist space for experiments. She’s a show is about finding new ways of creating despite injuries & trauma. She’s a show is a grief ritual. She’s a show helps you through heartache. She’s a show is a choice, a friend. She’s a show gives you a break from patriarchy.”

Ida Lunden. Det Lilla Rum, 2023. Photo: Meter.

Ida Lunden. Det Lilla Rum, 2023. Photo: Meter.

Ida Lunden. Det Lilla Rum, 2023. Photo: Meter.

In her former life Lunden was part of the duo Morblod (Mother Blood), so motherhood has always been present one way or another in her artistic practise. The way she makes home and work balance, is something I admire a lot: I am curating a solo show with her this Summer and we’ve already held several meetings on the playground, because that was the only way to do it.

We have scheduled the show to be after school break, so her work will not interfere with Summer holiday and we are currently looking into housing for her partner and kids for the install and opening days. How I wish, Statens Kunstfond or other funds, would create a pool specifically dedicated to these extra family expenses, because again: it takes a fucking village.

Matilde Duus, Trøst. Bricks Gallery, 2023. Photo: Malou Solfjeld.

Parents and children In Matilde Duus’ exhibition at Bricks Gallery, 2023.

Parents and children In Matilde Duus’ exhibition at Bricks Gallery, 2023.

Parents and children In Matilde Duus’ exhibition at Bricks Gallery, 2023.

Solace is the English title for Matilde Duus’ exhibition, which I visited with Mio and where we met Sonja, whose mom told me, she knew a good place to cry. I will encourage everyone to go and see it, and keep in mind that Duus is one of the artists who manage to be a power mum and power artist at the same time. It is not easy, but it is for sure entangled, and I find it extremely admirable. Solace in Danish is called Trøst, but if you shift two letters in the middle it becomes Tørst, meaning thirsty. I connect the two a lot, since I give solace to my son by breastfeeding him, which makes me extremely thirsty. Sidsel Winther writes about this in her book Hydrocore: “like a deep sea rolling over me [...] and then thirst. As if I was being drained from the inside.”

I wish to finish of this article by these words of Matilde Duus:

Solace is a space you step into.

"If you see me, cry" is carved into a stone that emerged somewhere in Germany during the drought last summer. As a silent monument to the dried-up rivers of earlier times with hunger as a result.

I mirror myself in the child's ignorance, its tears and laughter. Humans are the only animal which cry emotional tears and find solace therein.

I cry my salty tears into the ocean and watch it rise. The ocean is both the distance and the connection to everything I hold dear.

Other species have gone extinct before us and I live with loss and sorrow and rejoice every day. Solace is a search for rest. And someday we shall swim among seaweed for eternity – Matilde Duus, 2023.

Solace is a search for rest – solace is a search forest.

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And an extra tip: Keep an eye out for LABAE and Nazila Kivi’s book launch in April organized in collaboration with Ariel.

“HAWWA. Minoritetsgjort fødsel og moderskab", containing personal stories and encounters with the health system, written by members of the writing group HAWWA – by Nazila Kivi, Uzma Farooq, Sebolelo Mohapeloa and Trine Mee Sook Gleerup. The publication HAWWA is published by Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology and will be launched at Det Lilla Rum.” (from Ariel’s newsletter).

Nazila Kivi is a woman I’ve admired since I read the catalogue text to Ida Sønder Thorhauges solo show at Overgaden, in which she wrote about the taboo of breastfeeding (amning rimer på udskamning). Kivi makes a clear point by stating that care is incompatible with capitalism.

In her speech at Mads Nørgaard på Strøget March 8th 2023 Nazila Kivi pays homage to all the women in Tehran who went on the streets March 8th 1979, celebrating international womens day and protesting against mandatory hijab. She also pays tribute to the women of Iran who are fighting for their rights, their freedom and their lives these days. I remember she says that mothers bury their daughters in the ground as seeds planted in the soil to grow and spread all over the world...

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