Mother[hood]
PleinKunst project space, Amsterdam (NL)
26.04.2021 — 12.06.2021
Towering above a landscape strewn with miniscule buildings stands the figure of a mother. Below her, public life creeps through city streets into neighbourhoods, from neighbourhoods into homes. What ‘becomes’ motherhood at the scale of a city or a neighbourhood – a mother ‘hood’?
The work of the mother is historically kept out of the public sphere, but that doesn’t mean that the Mother[hood] is only as large as her house. What a mother makes becomes economy, what a mother teaches becomes knowledge and what a mother touches becomes society. The figure of the mother reminds us that in the end we are all mutually interdependent, that we are all part of the same social fabric.
Fruit leather is made through a slow method of sun-drying fruit pulp, predominantly practiced by women in the Caucasus and Middle East. Recipes like these are often passed on between generations, but fruit leather is a material that also managed to traverse territorial borders, different uses and traditions. ‘Ttu lavash’ in Armenia, ‘tklapi’ in Georgia, ‘lavashak’ in Iran, ‘pestil’ in Turkey, ‘pastilla’ in Russia, and ‘qamar el deen’ in Lebanon and Syria, the material carries many names. The thread running across these skins of fruit encompasses the ways in which we pass on knowledge, identity and trauma, making them part of our collective memory.
What do you want to draw on this skin of memories?
Artists: Olga Ganzha and Veronika Babayan
Curated by Naomi van Dijck & Lidewij Sloot.
The exhibition is organised within The Healing City. The Healing City is a programme in which artists are invited to explore what tactics and dynamics of togetherness may contribute to a healthy and sustainable way of living together after a period of separation by learning from ‘the neighbourhood’.
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RELATED
Project: My Armed Mothers ->
The work of the mother is historically kept out of the public sphere, but that doesn’t mean that the Mother[hood] is only as large as her house. What a mother makes becomes economy, what a mother teaches becomes knowledge and what a mother touches becomes society. The figure of the mother reminds us that in the end we are all mutually interdependent, that we are all part of the same social fabric.
Fruit leather is made through a slow method of sun-drying fruit pulp, predominantly practiced by women in the Caucasus and Middle East. Recipes like these are often passed on between generations, but fruit leather is a material that also managed to traverse territorial borders, different uses and traditions. ‘Ttu lavash’ in Armenia, ‘tklapi’ in Georgia, ‘lavashak’ in Iran, ‘pestil’ in Turkey, ‘pastilla’ in Russia, and ‘qamar el deen’ in Lebanon and Syria, the material carries many names. The thread running across these skins of fruit encompasses the ways in which we pass on knowledge, identity and trauma, making them part of our collective memory.
What do you want to draw on this skin of memories?
Artists: Olga Ganzha and Veronika Babayan
Curated by Naomi van Dijck & Lidewij Sloot.
The exhibition is organised within The Healing City. The Healing City is a programme in which artists are invited to explore what tactics and dynamics of togetherness may contribute to a healthy and sustainable way of living together after a period of separation by learning from ‘the neighbourhood’.
RELATED
Project: My Armed Mothers ->
Olga Ganzha ©