iterations 14, 20, 22
mothermother is an artist-run initiative with an inclusive kaupapa that offers support and visibility to over 30 artists with a strong focus on supporting local artists, as well as celebrating new connections outside Tāmaki.
mothermother promotes underrepresented artists and challenges hierarchical curatorial methods by elevating the unity of a healthy network.
mothermother artists are not necessarily biological mothers, but rather embody a kaupapa of manaakitanga, caretaking, and support for those who identify with the struggle of being fundamentally overlooked and under-valued as artists in a society that favours a male perspective.
We are ‘mOther’, ‘muth’: other, emergent, re-emergent, transitioning.
We acknowledge our muthas before us and aim to reveal the interconnected networks that support and sustain us, the bodily connections we hold to the land, our societies, each other and our futures.
iteration 14: Lockdown Special
A lockdown project to reactivate lost momentum due to strict Covid restrictions in 2021. "Kitchen tables and other claimed and compromised spaces of making reflected scattered and deformed plans. When everything was suspended and submerged - we made work for each other. Gift, reciprocity and connection; the demoted and misplaced reasons became the cornerstone of making as our regular dominant economies and demanding schedules dissolved. The promise of a future encounter - a lipstick kiss on the calendar, to summon, whenever needed - it was there." (Natalie Tozer)
11 artists each made a series of 11 (or 12 for symmetry) small works to split up and gift to each other after lockdown: Michelle Reid, Inga Fillary, Ekaterina Dimieva, Tori Beech, Sue Nelson, Janet Mazenier, Karen Rubado, Jana Wood, Veronica Herber, Lucy Boermans and Nat Tozer
mothermother booth at 2023 Aotearoa Art Fair featuring 9 new members: Jana Wood, Tori Beeche, Michelle Reid, Susan Nelson, Peter Derksen, Rowan Thomson, Lillie Balfour, Janet Mazenier, Karen Rubado and founder Natalie Tozer. Titled simply ‘The Table’, the public was invited to pull up a chair and take in the works as you would at a friend’s dining room table. In keeping with our ethos of manaakitanga (caretaking), The Table conjured a sense of community, home, sharing of kai (food), connection, ritual, and belonging – a thread that runs through the exhibited works: remnants of a hug in bronze, paintings inspired by daily walks and elemental kitchen ingredients, melted and repurposed pewter tea sets, film stills of an other-worldly home-bound odyssey, and woven things undone, to name a few.
Download the publication here (produced by Jordano Zatta)
A curatorial project exploring the pleasures and anxieties of the sub-urban: what is allowed, what is excluded, and what could be.
"Suburbia – a place where most of us live, but the art world often disdains. The first rail-commuter suburbs developed in the late 19th century as a middle-class response to the dirt and disease of the industrialising city. The low-density, car-dependant suburb was the dominant form of post-war cities, from Los Angeles to Auckland. The urban shifts required by decarbonisation, as well as the enforced domesticity of the last few years and the devastation of climate change have snapped our focus to the neighbourhood." (Stella Brennan)
includes work by 22 artists: Philippa Blair, Stella Brennan, Layla Rudneva-Mackay, The Estate of L.Budd, Inga Fillary, Natalie Tozer, Teresa Peters, Maree Horner, Ekaterina Dimieva, Monique Lacey, Rebecca Wallis, Kelly Pretty, Janet Mazenier, Lillie Balfour, Rose Meyer, Robyn Walton, Jana Wood, Michelle Mayn, Kiriana O’Connell, Jessica Douglas, Lucy Boermans, Karen Rubado, Tori Beeche, Susan Nelson, Melanie Arnold and Caitlin Devoy.