m/other futures

Motherhood and the kind of work that relates to it: reproductive work, gestational work, domestic work and care work takes up a very little space in the cultural imagination. The labour of social and bodily reproduction has traditionally been relegated to the sphere of Women, regarded as part of (her) nature, and otherwise unworthy of cultural representation and philosophical attention. In effect, the domestic sphere has been regarded as a non-political space.

However, there are several senses in which rethinking definitions of motherhood and the relations built around traditional notions of the maternal can open up a range of important questions. The maternal as a lived, physical embodiment of connectedness challenges liberal politics based on individualism, and foregrounds questions of proximity and kinship. Furthermore, thinking motherhood beyond the biological gender, and family beyond the heteronormative nuclear family allow us to engage in alternative and creative ways of cultivating relations. As ecofeminist thinker Donna Haraway reminds us, in a world of ecological devastation and a surplus of refugees of all species, we need to seriously engage in creative kin-making. This means, we need to challenge and expand notions of family in order to create more sustainable and inclusive spaces of coexistence, refuge, repair and care.

With the project m/other futures, we want to work around questions of how to make kin beyond the normative family unit and its gender politics. We want to probe the possibilities of artistically investigating, challenging and broadening politics of the domestic and take a closer look at the interconnections between ecology and the home (The word ecology comes from the Greek ‘oikos’, meaning home). The project will look at domestic activities of maintenance and care (child rearing, cooking, cleaning, gardening) as practices full of ecological, political and aesthetic potential. By doing so, the project will creatively explore the possibility of broadening the ideological constructions of dwelling and belonging, critically asking what / who does the home enclose and ensure - and who not? With a special focus on migration, gender politics, land and ecosystem-interrelations, the project will aim to reconfigure concepts of motherhood and otherhood, and speculate in alternative futures by probing practices and concepts of homebuilding and kinship from critical, experimental and queer points of view.

Participating artists: Kultivator, Rhizomatic Squad for Caring Technologies, Signe Johannessen, Riina Hannula, Karin Bolender Hart

This workshop is a curatorial collaboration between Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology, Kultivator and Art Lab Gnesta. It is generously supported by IASPIS, The Nordic Culture Fund and Nordic Culture Point