WCA Panel at CAA: Maternal Art Activism
Chair: Rachel Epp Buller, Bethel College Co-Chair: Margo Hobbs, Muhlenberg College Panelists: Amber Berson, Queen’s University; Tiffany Holmes, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Miriam Schaer, Columbia College Chicago; Erin McCutcheon, Tufts University
This panel considers the work of artists whose creative practice engages themes of maternity to position themselves as agents of cultural change.
Amber Berson & Julianna Dreiver
The Let Down Reflex is an exhibition that attempts to recognize the complexities of parenting in the art world, and asks if a better alternative for families can exist. Calling out a slippage in today’s feminist art world, the curators summon a group of artist-parents to contribute to a springboard for re-imagining an art world where “Mom” is not a demeaning characterization, where childcare is factored in for participating artists at art spaces, and where artists aren’t forced to choose between home and work because of a lack of parental leave.
Tiffany Holmes
At The University of Richmond Museums: Crooked Data: (Mis)Information in Contemporary Art
Exhibition curator N. Elizabeth Schlatter, Deputy Director and Curator of Exhibitions, University Museums
For the exhibition “Crooked Data,” Tiffany created the new work titled TMT.170209. This piece is a large data visualization, comprised of thousands of broken toy pieces organized into an 8-foot-tall pie chart that denotes species surveyed in the local Richmond National Battlefield Park. [TMT in the title stands for "Too Many Toys" (!)]
Miriam Schaer
Babies (Not) on Board addresses the question of why women who choose maternal independence over child-rearing angers or offends so many people and institutions. For Babies (Not) on Board, Schaer hand-embroidered representative actual negative comments on baby dresses using red thread to create scarlet letters. Gathered from interviews with childless women, online research, and personal experience, the statements taunt and accuse, and are typical of an relentless flow of critical statements that seem to be growing bolder even as non-traditional families gain greater acceptance.
