My latest body of work: In Conversation with Motherhood explores 120mm colour portraits of new-Mothers. Unlike most portraits of Mothers, these women are not surrounded by their home, kitchen or children, rather their bodies take up the whole frame looking directly at the viewer; aware and in-transition.
Beneath the surface of each portrait, opens up an often hidden world dealing with each individual’s challenge with the identity change associated with becoming a mother. This project seeks to rupture the stereotypical facade of what is presented to us as "mother" in our visual culture. I believe starting a dialogue about the often hidden world of what happens "at home" is important to help us understand and deal with Post Partum Depression.
The process of the photo-shoot is structured as an hour long conversation that is documented digitally. It closes with 12 final portraits captured on 120mm film with Hasselblad camera. 12 questions structure the conversation and each portrait relates specifically to how each woman has delt with topics such as: career vs. biology, hardships with mobility and the wavering equality between men and women.
This project will be previewed on Tuesday, May 6, 2014 at McNally Robinson, as part of the book launch "The M Word: Conversations about Motherhood by Kerry Clare.
link: http://gooselane.com/books.php?ean=9780864924872
Book Description:
There isn’t a mother who hasn’t thought of herself as stationed far outside maternity’s central zone — that imaginary place where all the babies are cooing, bananas are never bruised, and every woman is comfortable enough in her own skin to disregard a magazine’s blaring provocation: Are You Mom Enough?
In this original and sometimes provocative collection of essays, Saleema Nawaz, Alison Pick, Nancy Jo Cullen, Carrie Snyder, and many others explore the boundaries of contemporary motherhood. There are the women who have had too many children or not enough. There are women for whom motherhood is a fork in the road, encountered with contradictory emotions. And there are those who have made the conscious choice not to have children and then find themselves defined by that decision.
Here some of Canada’s best writers face down motherhood from the other side of the picket fence. The M Word. It means something to every woman. Exactly what it means is rarely simple.