Matrescence and Performance

Laura Bissell

ISBN 10: 1835952267 / ISBN 13: 9781835952269

Published by Intellect, GB, 2026

About this Item

An exploration of what performance can do to expand conventional representations of becoming a mother. Maternal bodies and processes of pregnancy, childbirth and sustenance have historically been depicted in art and literature as variously uncanny, abject, grotesque, monstrous, and hybrid. Societal conventions and myths around what makes a good or bad mother have limited the representations of maternal ambivalence and labour. Lived experiences of matrescence as depicted by mothers themselves have remained almost invisible with little exposure in galleries or mainstream art and media. Challenging complex and disparaging representations, or the erasure and invisibility of experiences of matrescence altogether, contemporary mother/artists working in the field of performance use their live bodies to subvert dominant images of conventional myths of motherhood. Using strategies of mimesis, liveness, embodiment, relationality, and performativity to render their own matrescent bodies, these artists explore historically pejorative theoretical concepts and aesthetics in new, feminist ways. This book frames performance as a site where becoming a mother can be understood as both a becoming and an unbecoming to expand understandings of matrescence.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781835952269

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Matrescence and Performance
• Publisher: Intellect, GB
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1835952267
• ISBN 13: 9781835952269
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Challenging the myths, silences, and stereotypes of motherhood through the live body in performance.

Matrescence and Performance examines what performance can do to challenge and expand conventional representations of becoming a mother. Across art history and literature, maternal bodies, along with the processes of pregnancy, childbirth, and sustenance, have often been cast as uncanny, abject, grotesque, monstrous, or hybrid. Societal conventions and myths about “good” and “bad” mothers have further constrained the depiction of maternal ambivalence and labor, leaving the lived experiences of matrescence largely invisible in galleries, mainstream art, and media.

Bringing together the work of artist mothers in contemporary performance, this book shows how live bodies can subvert dominant myths and disrupt the erasure of maternal experience. Through strategies of mimesis, liveness, embodiment, relationality, and performativity, these artists reframe historically pejorative concepts and aesthetics in new feminist ways. Performance becomes a site where becoming a mother is understood as both a becoming and an unbecoming, opening up a richer and more nuanced vocabulary for matrescence. Interdisciplinary in scope, this volume will appeal to students and scholars across the arts and cultural studies, as well as a wider readership interested in artist mothers, feminist art practices, and lived experiences of matrescence.
 

About the Author

Laura Bissell is a performance researcher, writer, and arts educator. She is an Athenaeum Research Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.