Tokophobias
Joint Project with Klaire Doyle
In this project I, I have been exploring what it means to be a mother of a girl in a world still controlled by a patriarchal society. This piece focuses on my fears as a new mum and as a woman who has decided not to have any more children. It explores the sense of loss for not being able to have that second child I so much yearned for. As a Mexican woman I've experienced loss at the hands of violence. As many Mexican mothers I worry about the rising incidents of abduction and femicide in my country and all over the world In this piece I wish to represent my fear of losing my daughter alongside my sadness about losing g the chance carrying a second child inside my womb.
I have become stepmother to a wonderful teenager and as I slowly fall in love with this young man, seeing him as if he were my own I mourn for the years I missed out when he was growing up. The moments of pain I would have wanted to spare him and protect him from. This brings me to explore my feelings as a stepmother and dealing with issues of loving a child as if he was your own you when you are not sure will be able to love you back or if he will want to stay in your life once he has grown up. The uncertainty of another loss of a child.
I am proposing a small installation made with the shapes of children's clothing creating a material image of the different phases of loss.
As Klaire starts experiencing her own path towards motherhood, I remember my own journey. In this project we stand together as women, artist and friends reflecting on each other as if we were looking into a mirror where we could both see our own past and future.
Klaire Doyle
I am an interdisciplinary artist based in the North of England predominantly investigating documentation, the monstrous feminine, the abject and the representation of these within Catholicism via performance and participatory practice. I have been internationally acknowledged since 2014, including solo and group works in New York City, Venice Biennale, Moscow and Helsinki. I am also an associate artist at Cross Street Studios, STEAM Wigan and an artist in residence at The Brick Homeless Charity where I run weekly workshops for people living in poverty. This project juxtaposes with and in respodsto my friend, mother and fellow artist, Georgianna. This project identifies and interrogates my own fears, anxieties and ignorance towards motherhood. As a non-mother, I would like to explore my own desires to nurture, as well as my anxieties towards child bearing and maternal identity. The female experience endures many pressures, including the pressure to bare child as the biological clock ticks! These pressures have been on my mind lately and I would like to challenge them. This auto ethnographic project provides open and honest discourse via contemporary art to expose the vulnerable state of none mothers considering motherhood. Both Klaire and Georgianna have tokophobia, meaning they have experienced extreme phobia towards child baring, birth, and/or motherhood. This exploration juxtaposes with the expectations of motherhood by Klaire, to the realities of motherhood experienced by Georgianna. Tokophobia amplifies the regular anxieties experienced by women regarding their maternity experience. We believe this research project will encourage positive discourse regarding female identity, female fear and abjection. This will also offer a safe space for women experiencing tokophobia, who may or may not know that support is available for them and their maternity choices.
In this project I, I have been exploring what it means to be a mother of a girl in a world still controlled by a patriarchal society. This piece focuses on my fears as a new mum and as a woman who has decided not to have any more children. It explores the sense of loss for not being able to have that second child I so much yearned for. As a Mexican woman I've experienced loss at the hands of violence. As many Mexican mothers I worry about the rising incidents of abduction and femicide in my country and all over the world In this piece I wish to represent my fear of losing my daughter alongside my sadness about losing g the chance carrying a second child inside my womb.
I have become stepmother to a wonderful teenager and as I slowly fall in love with this young man, seeing him as if he were my own I mourn for the years I missed out when he was growing up. The moments of pain I would have wanted to spare him and protect him from. This brings me to explore my feelings as a stepmother and dealing with issues of loving a child as if he was your own you when you are not sure will be able to love you back or if he will want to stay in your life once he has grown up. The uncertainty of another loss of a child.
I am proposing a small installation made with the shapes of children's clothing creating a material image of the different phases of loss.
As Klaire starts experiencing her own path towards motherhood, I remember my own journey. In this project we stand together as women, artist and friends reflecting on each other as if we were looking into a mirror where we could both see our own past and future.
Klaire Doyle
I am an interdisciplinary artist based in the North of England predominantly investigating documentation, the monstrous feminine, the abject and the representation of these within Catholicism via performance and participatory practice. I have been internationally acknowledged since 2014, including solo and group works in New York City, Venice Biennale, Moscow and Helsinki. I am also an associate artist at Cross Street Studios, STEAM Wigan and an artist in residence at The Brick Homeless Charity where I run weekly workshops for people living in poverty. This project juxtaposes with and in respodsto my friend, mother and fellow artist, Georgianna. This project identifies and interrogates my own fears, anxieties and ignorance towards motherhood. As a non-mother, I would like to explore my own desires to nurture, as well as my anxieties towards child bearing and maternal identity. The female experience endures many pressures, including the pressure to bare child as the biological clock ticks! These pressures have been on my mind lately and I would like to challenge them. This auto ethnographic project provides open and honest discourse via contemporary art to expose the vulnerable state of none mothers considering motherhood. Both Klaire and Georgianna have tokophobia, meaning they have experienced extreme phobia towards child baring, birth, and/or motherhood. This exploration juxtaposes with the expectations of motherhood by Klaire, to the realities of motherhood experienced by Georgianna. Tokophobia amplifies the regular anxieties experienced by women regarding their maternity experience. We believe this research project will encourage positive discourse regarding female identity, female fear and abjection. This will also offer a safe space for women experiencing tokophobia, who may or may not know that support is available for them and their maternity choices.
