The reason I went to Warsaw this weekend was to be present during a joint exhibition created in collaboration with mothers dancers and their daughters. My mom‘s friend wanted to repeat a photo, which she took 20 years ago of a friend who was a prima ballerina of the Teatr Wielki – the most famous Polish Theatre, with her five year-old daughter as they were playing together on a massive wicker chair. That friend, 20 years later asked my mom to repeat that photo keeping in mind that when she got when she first got pregnant, a family member reacted to the news: “Oh I thought dancers didn’t have children”. That dancer had 2 children, quit ballet and started her own modern dance company and foundation, cialo/umysl, which has been organising dance festivals for the last 20 years in Warsaw. The question lingered on in the dancers mind for the next 20 years so the project grew into a collaboration with seven dancers who are all mothers and some of them continue dancing some of them decided to finish their careers and some of the daughters decided to not follow into their mom‘s footsteps. When I found out about this exhibition I felt immediate urge to become part of the project because there’s something about drawing movement that fascinates me, especially dancers and how much they can express through movement. I also feel deeply connected to the story of artists who became mothers, as it is also my story, so I absolutely had to be part of this project. My mum’s part of the exhibition has six 1,5 x 3 m photographs of mothers with children dancing while lying down on the floor. I was supposed to draw those dancers during the photoshoot, while they were posing, but my mum‘s back went out and I had to climb a 5 m tall platform where the camera was installed, to take the photos of the dancers with their daughters. I then decided to meet with all the dancers individually and draw them while they were moving freely, dancing, stretching, relaxing, and having honest conversations with me. I documented that process on video and my editor/mother friend edited it. It became a 2m x 4m projection onto a black wall where you could only see my arm drawing in white charcoal on black paper as well as some still images of finished pieces incorporated in between the films of my moving hand. Betweeen those we inserted recordings of my hand writing, in white charcoal on black paper, a manifesto that was created by the Fouder of this exhibition and Ciało/Umysł foundation, my mums dancer friend, to describe the feelings connected to the often untold and unnoticed story of a mother/artist/dancer, and her struggle and strength in overcoming postpartum. The photos and projection were accompanied by interviews with the dancers and their daughters, an interview with me an my mum, shown on a loop on three TV screens placed with headphones throughout the exhibition.
I am sort of starting to see this connection between this project, in which I was really invested for the last six months, often getting very emotional and crying, just listening to the dancers stories about their experiences, and thinking of my own experiences is an artist, mother, similar to the feeling I have when I see the bronze sculpture Mother Verite of the postpartum Mother. I’ve been also analyzing this whole situation in my therapy sessions and talking about how it is an invisibility of the postpartum mothers that probably makes them feel emotionally exhausted. It makes the experience that’s already very difficult even harder I think, hiding it, pretending it doesn’t exist. It deepens the problems that happen in that very delicate period of their lives and they are the most vulnerable and equally they need to be the strongest. I think something I would like to talk about in my practice is the invisibility, the power of talking about vulnerability and the importance of experiences of the different stages of motherhood.
