The Maternal in Creative Work: Intergenerational Discussions on Motherhood and Art

The Maternal in Creative Work examines the interrelation between art, creativity and maternal experience, inviting international artists, theorists and cultural workers to discuss their approaches to the central feminist question of the relation between maternity, generation and creativity.

This edited collection explores various modes and forms of art practice which look at mothers as subjects and as artists of the maternal experience, and how the creative practice is used to accept, negotiate, resist or challenge traditional conceptions of mothering. The book brings together some of the major projects of maternal art from the last two decades and opens up new ways of conceptualizing motherhood as a creative and communicative practice. Chapters include intergenerational discussion of art practices in the 20th and 21st centuries, representations of breastfeeding and infertility in creative projects, the notion of the ‘unfit mother’ and childlessness, together with the experiences of women and men that take on maternal identities through many forms of kinship and social mothering.

The Maternal in Creative Work will be essential reading for interdisciplinary students and scholars in cultural studies, gender studies and art theory and will have wider appeal to audiences interested in maternity, childcare, creativity and psychoanalysis.

Elena Marchevska, PhD, is a practitioner, academic and researcher interested in new historical discontinuities that have emerged in post-capitalist and post-socialist transition. She is researching and writing extensively on the issues of belonging, displacement, the maternal and intergenerational trauma. Her artistic work explores the relationship between the maternal, borders and stories that emerge from living in transition. She is an Associate Professor in Performance Studies at London South Bank University.

Valerie Walkerdine, PhD, is an artist, academic and researcher bringing artistic and cultural practice together with cultural and social theory and research. Her work on the maternal focuses on issues of inter-generational transmission, expressing that work through installation, performance and practice-based work with de-industrialised communities. Her research and writing reflect these concerns and also focus on psychosocial aspects of intergenerational transmission in relation to class and gender. She is editor of the journal Subjectivity (Palgrave). She is Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales.