1
300
3
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https://artistparentindex.com/files/original/af96f19681a46c23f188ccd99abe2fd0.jpg
dbff5bcdbceeb17a4fee632593c185a7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Artist Parent Index
Person
An individual.
Website
The Artist's website
<a href="https://jessievanderlaan.com/home.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://jessievanderlaan.com/home.html</a>
Medium
drawing
fiber art
printmaking
sculpture
Location
The location of the interview
Knoxville
Tennesee
USA
Artist Statement
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">My current work views the world through the lens of a parent, simultaneously embracing joy, frustration, hope and fear. My work has always engaged in the liminal states of consciousness, through examinations of precipices, seams, folds, and crevices. In this new work, figurative elements of hands: my own and my children’s, become further lenses for exhuberence or despair. In some cases the hands obscure, and in others highlight. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Both experiences are true, useful, and not mutually exclusive. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">I often feel that my arms are my most precious resource. They allow me to hold hands across parking lots, to carry bags, to prepare meals, to wash dishes, to gesture when I am intensely speaking, to draw, to write, and they are often full. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Precarious balance has always been at the crux of my work, and never has it seemed more true to my lived experience than as an artist and mother.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> The imagery included with the arms and hands continues to reflect the landscape, as I am habitually drawn to rock formations and fields of flowers. I connect this imagery to the world we inhabit, are desperate to protect, and which holds the history of generations. Through this work, I hope to examine and share the experience of motherhood, in all that is devastating, and all that is jubilant. </span></p>
Topic
parenting
motherhood
fear
hope
post-partum
post-partum depression
post-partum anxiety
environment
landscape
feminism
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jessie Van der Laan
drawing
fiber art
printmaking
sculpture
-
https://artistparentindex.com/files/original/2adb4c065566684651e4e8d4f34349e7.jpg
8026721e6a75ce95711485ab37c9a7b9
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Artist Parent Index
Person
An individual.
Website
The Artist's website
<a href="http://www.whatfandoes.com">www.whatfandoes.com</a>
Topic
birth
labour
post-partum
data visualization
Medium
Soundscape and hand knitted blanket
Artist Statement
“Labour” is a hand knitted data visualisation that tells the story of my daughter’s birth. Each square represents one of the 15 hours between my waters breaking and my daughter being born. Different colours, patterns and textures indicate where I was, what emotions I went through, the intensity of the contractions and other sensations, the support I received, and what hormone likely dominated the situation. The blanket is accompanied by a 5mn audio soundscape. The act of knitting evokes waiting, expectation and hours of hard work. Thus, it becomes an accurate reflection of pre-birth and labour. During the few days preceding and following her birth, all I wanted was to crawl into bed and hide from the outside world. It is likely that my body was craving melatonin, a hormone released in dark, calm and safe situations. Melatonin boosts the production of the birth hormone, oxytocin, which in turns helps to release endorphins, our bodies’ natural pain relief. The blanket represents the place of safety I was craving during that time.
Location
The location of the interview
London
United Kingdom
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fan Sissoko
birth
data visualization
labor
labour
Post-partum.
sound scape
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https://artistparentindex.com/files/original/43d6ba07672bbe457f67070ee1dc0c21.jpg
ad6d4c4447e83d9a89e63284384ef976
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Artist Parent Index
Person
An individual.
Website
The Artist's website
<a href="http://www.qianamestrich.com/hard-to-place" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.qianamestrich.com/hard-to-place</a>
<a href="http://www.qianamestrich.com/photography-trust-your-struggle" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.qianamestrich.com/photography-trust-your-struggle</a>
Medium
photography
book
Location
The location of the interview
Brooklyn
New York
Artist Statement
<p></p>
<h1>Hard To Place</h1>
<p></p>
<p><strong><span><em>For all loves never allowed to be.</em></span></strong></p>
<p><span><em>Hard To Place</em> is a true story about race, family and the child welfare system in post-war Britain.</span></p>
<p><span>Combining confidential, UK government documentation with archival and (auto)biographical photography, this series traces the experience of Joseph, an orphan boy of Nigerian and Irish parentage growing up in 1960s/70s London. As a “half-cast(e)” child, in England, Joseph was considered “hard to place” amongst the mostly white, adoptive families.</span></p>
<p><span>Joseph is my husband. On our first date he nervously told me his life story, continuously pulling at his sleeves to hide the ink of bad decisions made during his teenage years as a black skinhead. The little boy seen in <em>Hard To Place</em> is our son. The images in the book provide a visual alternative to the official, master narrative of child welfare that many mixed-race children are imprisoned by.</span></p>
<div><span> </span></div>
<h1>Trust Your Struggle (2010)</h1>
<p></p>
<p>In 2010 during the months after giving birth to my son, I turned to the camera to work through a period of intense loneliness I had never felt before. <span>Feelings of joy and love for my new baby came with equal sentiments of fear and isolation. </span>This “post-partum” situation challenged me to make photographs within the spatial limits of our apartment and to visualize my entrance into motherhood.</p>
<p>During this time, my photographic practice allowed me to hold on to a creative aspect of my previous self that I felt was slipping with every diaper change and breastmilk-pumping session. <i>Trust Your Struggle</i><span> is a photographic essay that documents what is often considered taboo when publicly discussing the new mother experience: the isolation, hectic days, sleepless nights, physical pain and those rare, selfish moments.</span></p>
Topic
motherhood
child welfare
mixed-race children
post-partum
early motherhood
breastmilk
baby food
baths
Exhibitions
Exhibitions in the Index that an artist has participated in. The two entries will be linked.
<a href="http://www.artistparentindex.com/items/show/388">Mother Load</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Qiana Mestrich
baby food
breast pump
breastfeeding
breastmilk
child wellfare
early motherhood
early parenthood
mixed-race children
wellfare