Seed Commissions
It all started when…
MWM Artists meeting at Clean Break London: (from left to right) Artists Miriam, Matilda, Delea, Rachael, Gemma
Matilda Leyser invited other Mother Makers to join her at The National Theatre for some research and development in 2017. Seven artists responded to the invitation to explore the relationship between their mothering and their making in a committed group. They met once a month for four months, with homework assignments inbetween. Matilda wanted the group to have something to show from this time, a clear outcome to grow out of all their exchanges, and so she set the artists the following brief:
I would like you to make a piece of work in a medium of your choosing – it could be a story, a poem, a list, a picture, a film, a piece of live art, a play, a song. It is a response to your experience of being a mother and a maker and to the territory that we have begun to explore in our brief R&D time together. Whatever you make will be a resource for other mothers and other makers – a source of information and/or inspiration to which other women can turn, in fact to which anyone within the creative industries can turn. Finally it needs to be able to take on a form which can live on the Mothers Who Make website once it has been built. E.g. if you write a monologue to be performed live, you would then make a film of it and/ or publish the script. Other than this your commission is wide open to do with what you wish……
The group's ideas were included within Mother Who Make's first project application to Arts Council England which was successful, so each artist received ongoing support, peer mentoring and a small seed fund to explore their idea further. The works the artists have made are meant to act as a resource and an invitation to you to engage in your own making. From November we hope to have these new resources on our website to share with you. There will also be a live event at which all the artists will present their work. Some of the artists are running participative workshops as part of their project - more details can be found via the link below.
Meet the artists
Unstoppered
– A podcast
By Gemma Kerr,
theatre maker and director
Gemma is curious about women’s experiences of ‘leaks’ in their lives, from getting your period at an inopportune moment, having night sweats during the menopause, to lying in puddles of breastmilk and wee. So Gemma is sending out a message in a bottle - through an open invitation, she would like women to write her an anonymous, leaky letter. These stories and confessions will be used to create a podcast to celebrate female ‘leaks’ and help break the taboos about the things that women’s bodies do. Read more: https://www.gemmakerr.com/unstoppered-a-work-in-progress
Picturing Mother Makers and Making Mothers
- A photographic exhibition
By Miriam Nabarro,
artist and theatre designer
Miriam wants to record the often silent, uncelebrated histories of artist mothers and mother artists. She will turn the camera on their creativity, resilience, endless juggling and survival. She will highlight the intergenerational knowledge and wisdom that as yet has had no place to be gathered. This mother artist archive project will involve a series of interviews on creative practice and mothering, alongside photographic portraitures.
StoryStitch – A story workshop for mother
By Julia Gwynne, actress, storyteller and writer
Julia loves stories. She loves telling them, hearing them and writing them. She loves the way stories connect us, inspire us, excite us and are part of us. She loves the way they can help us cope with tricky times and the way they communicate with children (and adults!). Julia will write a small collection of stories for her son (and anyone else who would like to share them) and will run a series of gentle workshops in a local school that offer a step by step guide for mothers on how to write, create, act or draw a story for their child/ren. Some images and excerpts from the group’s stories will appear on the MWM website in the autumn.
The Sounds of Motherhood: a graphic score
By Delea Shand,
singer, music educator, performer
Delea has been composing with her children, focusing on the daily practice of mothering and the creativity involved. They haven’t been writing down fixed pitches and durations, as in conventional musical notation, but instead they’ve been making graphic scores, with images, pictures and symbols. This technique is a great way of engaging children and empowering adult ‘non-musicians’ to compose together. Delea will share her approach through a community workshop, on the MWM website, and will perform her finished score in the autumn.
Workshop Event: 13th October at Wimbledon Library (SOLD OUT)
Mother Record Book – a DIY book
By Zoe Gardner,
writer and performer
Why do we only track the baby’s development? What about the mother’s no less momentous change? Born of a desire to mimic, deface and remodel the Baby Record book format, Zoe’s Mother Record Book is an intimate object and a sociable project: a book recording Zoe’s personal experience of motherhood (poems mainly written in the dark while breastfeeding,) with extending/retracting tabs: prompts and invitations for mothers to respond with their own creations. Through workshops at her local community centre and other child-friendly venues, Zoe is making a living installation, piecing and stitching it together while engaging in conversation and mutual support of the process.
Fuck. This. List. - a show in the making
By Rachael Spence,
actor and theatre maker
Rachael has become preoccupied with the divvying up of everyday tasks within her home. She wants it to be fair. It isn’t. She has started to make a list of everything that needs to be done. The problem is that the list keeps growing – and growing. Will she ever reach the end of it? Might some algorithms and data analysis help her in her quest for domestic equality? If she turns her list into a show, who will carry out all the tasks at home while she is on stage……?
This Year Will Turn – a novel
By Matilda Leyser,
theatre-maker, writer
Matllda has been writing a novel for six years. She knows it has been this long because she began it when her son was born, and he is now six and a half. She wants to finish it before he turns seven. It is a novel about motherhood, inspired by the great mythical mother, Demeter, the ancient Greek goddess of the harvest, and the story of love and loss that surrounds her and her daughter, Persephone. Alongside finishing the book, Matilda will interview other mother-writers about their experiences and aims to hold a family-friendly writing retreat.
