Video Still from The Laboratory of Spatial Bemusement (Tia Halliday & Megan Dyck) an ongoing video and performance project 2018-Present. Performer Pictured: Tia Halliday. spatialbemusement.com

F.7.1 The Art of Preoccupation: Artists’ Self-Representation of Pregnancy

Tia Halliday, University of Calgary

Self-representations of pregnancy on behalf of artists, raise many questions about the role of gender, economic class, equity, and labor within the Art world. Canadian artist Kim Waldron’s Public Office campaign and photography project (2014 – 2016), reveals the problematic politics surrounding expectant women artists and creative persons who experience pregnancy. With notable effects on performance artists, photographers, and others whose primary practice includes the use of one’s own body as creative subject, pregnancy’s complex subjecthood is coded as a visual signification of preoccupation; the labor of growing and gestating human life. So what does the art of preoccupation (making when we are already making) tell us about commonly-held beliefs surrounding expecting artists? What implicit beliefs surrounding work and labor production are held by viewers of pregnant bodies and how are these complexities revealed in the work of pregnant artists? This presentation will survey the self-representation of artist who experienced pregnancy, many of whom took up the process and experience as subject matter within their work. Positioned as a purposeful and fleeting opportunity to ask questions about the politics of the reproducing body, or as the collateral subject matter resulting from a pregnant artist’s desire to simply get to work, the self-representations of pregnant artists provide valuable insight into the position of reproducing persons within both the art and greater community.

F.7.2 Making the Virgin Mary Speak: Motherhood and Christian Iconography / Faire parler la Madone: Maternité et iconographie chrétienne

Nathalie Dietschy, University of Lausanne

While the theme of motherhood in art has been interpreted in many different ways, Western representations of motherhood are still influenced by Christian iconography and the canonical image of the Virgin Mary (Verdon, 2005), leaving archetypal pictures of the mother and the relationship to her child that persist today. The photographic portraiture of pregnant Beyonce by Awol Erizku in 2017 showed for example the international star as a Madonna. However, these iconographic formulas inherited from the Christian tradition are questioned and criticized by contemporary artists and more specifically by women artists, directly concerned. They reappropriate Christian motifs (Annunciation, Virgin and Child, pietà, ...) and include them in a secular setting, outside of churches. Inscribed in the personal journey of the artist, these versions, which resort to tradition but are anchored in the present, very often make the Madonna speak. While in the Gospels the Virgin Mary is a silent figure (she speaks only four times), and her iconography, inspired by the Bible, makes her a mother of purity, with a hieratic, tender or nurturing attitude, her voice carries that of the artist in contemporary revisits. Like Her son, Christ who, as we have shown elsewhere, is no longer just an alter ego of the artist, but a spokesman, the figure of the Virgin Mary is used to embody a discourse, a militant position on women and their role as mothers. We wish to reflect upon the impact of Christian iconography in picturing maternity in contemporary photography by analyzing several key examples that explore Christian themes in a secular setting in order to discuss main issues related to motherhood such as infertility, motherhood for lesbian women, medically assisted pregnancy, adoption, or breastfeeding.

F.7.3 Milk Factory

Corinne Botz, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY)

The focus of Milk Factory, the subject of this proposal, is the visualization of lactation rooms. Seldom is any space simultaneously so utilitarian and emotionally charged. Lactation rooms embody deeply felt, subjective experiences of motherhood. Symbolically and materially, expressed milk simulates physical and emotional intimacy when mother and child are separated. These little-known and commonly unseen interiors offer insight into women’s personal experiences, the maternal body’s status in the workplace, and fundamental socio-political issues pertaining to the family.

Milk Factory originated as a personal record of my early experience as a mother after I gave birth to my daughter and took a photograph of the oddly sparse room I pumped in at the College where I teach. A few years later, realizing the relationship of this image to my other work as an exploration of space, I decided to expand the project to create an unconventional portrait of motherhood. The arbitrary quality of many rooms designated for the purpose of lactation points to the tenuous position new mothers inhabit in the workforce. Any investigation of lactation rooms must acknowledge the absence of policy for mandated paid maternity leave in America. Through my images I endeavor to help normalize pumping, create a public discourse concerning the politics of care, and highlight the importance of women’s voices/visibility. The photographs are named for the diverse professions of the pumping women. While pumping can enable women to have more autonomy, accelerating reentry to the workplace soon after childbirth, it also erases the intimacy of breastfeeding and bodily contact. My images of lactation rooms reflect some of the ideological contradictions inherent in modern parenthood and public policies. The solitary pumping rooms take on collective power through the accumulation of photographs.