With my return back to Berlin, Germany in autumn 2017, I thought to initiated a new artist collective to investigate one of the most marginalised topic within both the art world and feminist discourse: Motherhood. I am very glad to have found these smart, skilled and generous women which form “MATERNAL FANTASIES” collective since. 

MATERNAL FANTASIES are: Lena Chen, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Magdalena Kallenberger, Hanne Klaas, Maicyra Leao, Aino El Solh and Isabell Spengler.

MATERNAL FANTASIES, Landpartie 01 (2018)

"How do we – women who are artists who are mothers who are daughters who are artists – write ourselves into the (art) world? And, how do we unwrite an already written page? How do we draw from our experiences as splitted subjectivities an intergenerational dialogue with our feminist ancestors? What does poetry, collectiveness and fantasy have to do with resistance? As a collective, we take action to overcome the private and the historic institution of motherhood, fighting the danger of the single story (Ngozi Adichie, 2009) to open up the possibility of thinking-with (Haraway, 1988) and through each others stories.

In our understanding, mothering is not exclusive to a physical and xed category or identity, but instead represents dedicated time, attention, nurturance, protection, and an interrupted state of mind, which gives rise to a distinctive discipline of thoughts (Ruddick, 1989). In relation to art, our research process is directly affected by everyday, private narratives, site interference, and eco-queer-communitarian-feminist discourses. Therefore, our collective production – which requires the distribution of artistic responsibilities as well as domestic and emotional labor – functions simultaneously as a site of social experimentation and political-performative practice. 

Working since 2018 on collaborative projects, we have developed our own repertoire of methods – using performative games, writing sessions, rotational authorship/direction/hosting of events, coming up with various sets of rules for our different projects in photography, performance, installations, workshops and lm/video. We are at times carefully integrating our children in the process of our collective art production.”
 

excerpt MATERNAL FANTASIES Manifesto (2020)

 

For more information: www.maternalfantasies.net

published at Arts of the Working Class print issue 11, "Faux Culture"

and online at http://artsoftheworkingclass.org/text/fake-gleichberechtigung

Performative Exercise // Traveling Drawing (2019/20)

Inspired by the exhibition With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985, Pattern in Contemporary Film explores how pattern, decoration, and domestic subject matter are used in contemporary film and digital media. Pattern in Contemporary Film includes works by Brian O’Connell, Charles Woodman, Maternal Fantasies, and Jodie Mack.