MAMA Issue 50: Mothers and trees. Roots and families. Art and love.

Mother of the Forest is one of the tallest trees in Santa Cruz Park. A symbolic womb at her core forms an 8 x 13 foot room, or a hobbit hole, or a sacred space — depending on your perspective. Trees are a testimony to patience and resilience. They offer shelter, contribute to healthy ecosystems, and fight climate change. Redwoods protect and support each other as well as other sapling growth by creating family circles sprouted from the roots of a parent tree. These families may or may not be genetically related. These lessons in cooperation can be a metaphor for humanity in its current fragmented state.

M.A.M.A Issue 39: Muttererde & The Language of Class

Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor Muttererde (2017) Video Muttererde profiles conversations with five black femmes on the knowledge and non-knowledge of their mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers and as far back as the knowledge carries them to create a rich and powerful archive on ancestry.  They explore themes of motherhood, migration, cultural differences, beauty standards, queerness, kinship, death and rebirth.Continue reading “M.A.M.A Issue 39: Muttererde & The Language of Class”

M.A.M.A. Issue 38: – Casey Jenkins & Amy Watkins

Issue 38 – October Casey Jenkins – sMother [Performance] sMother psychological-endurance artwork. Gendered assumptions, judgments and advice – whether meant to protect or to control – bind and confine those perceived to be ‘women of childbearing age’, paralyzing us with fear and shame. Our identities are subdued and mummified in forced acquiescence by community expectations that preserve absurdContinue reading “M.A.M.A. Issue 38: – Casey Jenkins & Amy Watkins”

M.A.M.A. Issue 35: Mothers Pride with Natalie Ramus and Katie Manning

Natalie Ramus: Artist statement With my exploration of the materiality of the body, I attempt to connect with the innately performative body in view of it’s visceral, abject qualities. Through the re-presentation of bodily materials (such as hair or skin), that have universal familiarity through subjective experience, I am interested in how the gap between viewerContinue reading “M.A.M.A. Issue 35: Mothers Pride with Natalie Ramus and Katie Manning”