MAM Press Release
MAM is a new art magazine focusing on artists from around the world producing work about the maternal.
The first issue, “Stay At Home”, due out in June 2020 is a response by 20 artists to their experiences of working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The magazine aims to support artists through this challenging time as well as raising money for Women’s Aid*.
“Stay At Home” has been edited by Helen Sargeant, an artist and academic based in Todmorden, Yorkshire, UK.
Contributions include paintings by Shani Rhys James and Jessica Timmis, collage work by Lauren McLaughlin, an interview with Paula Chambers who makes installations and sculptures about disrupted domesticity, a series of self-portraits, “PRONIA” by performance artist Nicola Hunter, “Knitted Houses of Crime” by Freddie Robins and exquisite paper-cuttings of matriarchs by Pippa Dyrlaga.
“Stay At Home” is a response to the pandemic, the interruption, and anxiety that each day we are all having to live with. MAM was born initially as a way to distract me from looking too often at the news and becoming depressed, a way to be creative, collaborate, communicate and engage with other artists and mothers during this crisis. MAM’s wish is that this first issue of the magazine will provide its readers with a small moment of joy during this international crisis. MAM: Stay At Home, has been produced at the kitchen table in-between the on-going drama of daily family life, the caring and coaxing of children to do their schoolwork, the cuddling of cats, cooking, clearing up and feeding the washing machine with yet more laundry.”
MAM Editor – Helen Sargeant
* We have chosen to support Women’s Aid as domestic violence has risen by 50 percent in the UK since the lockdown began.
www.maternalart.com ( to be launched June 27, 2020)
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maternalart/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maternalarthome
Helen Sargeant editor of Maternal Art Magazine introduces the art work of Rachel Fallon
I first encountered Rachel Fallon’s work through the Desperate Art Wives Collective. I was immediately drawn to her works about female identity, confinement and the domestic such as Built in Kitchen 2012, which holds such resonance now during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rachel is a dear friend of mine and we have been lucky enough to have worked together on many art projects such as The Egg The Womb, The Head and The Moon (2013-2014), Project Afterbirth (2015), Artist As Mother As Artist (2016) and MAM: Stay At Home (2020).
At first, I exchanged slug mail with Rachel, which included drawings and stories of our lives before we became mothers. I was enthralled by the letters that I received and of Rachels accounts of working for a traveling circus across Europe and then living as an artist in Berlin.
It is however her intelligent, personal, political, and thought-provoking art work that continues to act as a catalyst for our communications.
About
Rachel Fallon is a visual artist who deals with themes of protection and defense in domestic realms and addresses the topic of motherhood and womens’ relationships to society. More recently her work has begun to focus on reverse parenting, examining the correlation of roles and duties in elder and parental care and the complex landscapes of mothering.
Her work encompasses sculpture, drawing, photography and performance and is firmly rooted in processes of making. As well as an individual practice, she is known for her collaborations with Irish and international artists and collectives; including Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, Desperate Artwives, Grrrl Zine Fair and The Tellurometer Project.
The two disparate ways of working feed into one another and are therefore equally important parts of her practice. She is a founding member of pff Publications – a feminist zine and Outpost Studios an independent artist-led studio. Her work is held in public and private collections including the Collection of the Arts Council of Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland, the Wellcome Collection, U.K.and Goldsmiths Womens’Art Library, U.K.
Selected Images:
- Aprons of Power Performance – ACREA – Repeal 2018 (Homepage, featured image and below)
- The MotherHood 2015
- Built-in-kitchen 2012
- La Befana – performance 2016
