One for Sorrow
One for Sorrow, a collaborative work with artists Alison O'Neill and Jo Paul, is a video installation investigating the infertility journey, IVF, omens and unfulfilled imaginings.
Imagined Children
“Throughout my infertility journey and even as a child, I feel as if I have known my daughter. Since the fertility issues, she has been walking beside me but always with a veiled curtain between us, out of reach, we can see each other, we watch each other, but she cant get through the veil and I canʼt reach her.” (Jo Paul)
The imagined child, in this case a daughter, is one that is present from the first time we imagine our future selves as mothers. This child is seen and experienced in our imaginations. We will explore who this child is, where she came from and what it is she represents.
Superstition
We will also be considering the role of superstition in the infertility/fertility journey and how a process so seemingly based on luck can produce behaviour based on superstition. “If I do this maybe I will get pregnant” “If I see one magpie today maybe I wont get pregnant”. We will look at superstitious practices such as saluting magpies and how these practices are often passed down from mother to daughter and how these actions are performed despite our knowing that they are perhaps meaningless.
Re-imagined Futures
When so much time and money has been invested into having a child how does one re-imagine a possible future without children? What does that future look like and how can it be reconciled with the imagined children who have not been born.
As resident artists of AA2A, there will be a showing of preliminary work at North Hertfordshire Art College May 11th -29th 2015 and a presentation talk about the work during the conference Motherhood and Creative Practice: Maternal Structures in Creative Work June 1-2 2015 at the School of Arts and Creative Industries, London South Bank University, London.
