To become two or more or many
a creative workshop by MATERNAL FANTASIES (Isabell Spengler and Magdalena Kallenberger)
 
The feminist art collective MATERNAL FANTASIES was founded in 2018 by seven Berlin-based artists in response to the challenges each of us faced individually when we became mothers. How to not become socially isolated, artistically invisible, and precariously poor, while caring for young children? How to continue our artistic practices? How to continue making art?
 
Although we come from different cultural backgrounds and countries, and we live in various parenting constellations, we all felt that (despite prior feminist waves and artistic and activist movements) the predominant image of motherhood, the image advertised to us within Western, capitalist societies as successful and desirable is the image of a "supermom". A single hero figurine, who with her superpowers manages to balance double and triple burdens of career, life, relationships, and care-work without any visible effort and who performs flawlessly throughout all kinds of crises. We felt that this image not only had very little to do with our life realities but - as the crises of the past five years have continuously shown - this image is indeed isolationist, privileged, polarizing, and dangerous, because it overshadows structural forms of discrimination of mothers* and mother* artists.
 
As a feminist collective, we asked: How can we join forces with peers instead of being cast as lonely heroes? How can we (re)distribute artistic responsibilities as well as domestic and emotional labor? How can we empower each other and build alliances across differences? And we set out to build new social and artistic infrastructures – together.
 
Drawing on the artistic methods and strategies developed by MATERNAL FANTASIES during the past years, the workshop includes a collective reading and writing session based on excerpts from their book "Re-Assembling Motherhood(s) - On Radical Care and Collective Art as Feminist Practices" (2020) and a series of performative exercises and performance-inspired drawings, that examine the potentials of collective artistic agency. Introductory to the workshop, MATERNAL FANTASIES will present their short essay film "Suspended Time, on Caring" (2020).
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Workshop led by Magdalena Kallenberger and Isabell Spengler / MATERNAL FANTASIES
Sat. Nov. 18th, 13:00 - 17:00, Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok
 
for 12-18 adult participants (parents and guardians with their children welcome) including lunch (break? at 13:00) / including a shared meal at 13:00
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Maternal Fantasies Biography
Maternal Fantasies is an interdisciplinary group of international artists and cultural producers based in Berlin. They shape the discourse on motherhood through collective artistic processes while enhancing the visibility of contemporary feminist positions addressing motherhood(s) in the arts. From writing autobiographical responses to classic feminist texts to devising performances using children’s games, their art practice favors inclusive community-oriented experiments as alternatives to traditional structures of art production. Bridging theory and practice, their strategy transforms research on motherhood(s), care work and representation in the arts into frameworks for immersive modes of critique.
 
MATERNAL FANTASIES are Aino El Solh, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Lena Chen Hanne Klaas, Magdalena Kallenberger, Maicyra Leao and Isabell Spengler.
 
Maternal Fantasies are recipients of the Artist Advancement Award 2019/20 of the Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung and authors of the book "Re-Assembling Motherhood(s) - On Radical Care and Collective Art as Feminist Practices" (published by onomatopee, 2020, 2nd edition 2022).
 
further info /websites:
www.maternalfantasies.net
www.mkallenberger.de
www.isabellspengler.net
 
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Event partner:
Goethe-Institut Warsaw