Artist Mother Studio - Washington Project for the Arts

Artist Mother Studio - Washington Project for the Arts

Artist Mother Studio (AMS) seeks to shift the conversation around motherhood to broaden its definition beyond that of a universalist white paternalism to an understanding of it as the conditioning of a world to come. For nine weeks, WPA will function as an artist residency with childcare. AMS will conclude with a mini-conference and a zine on November 3. The project has been organized by DC artist Amy Hughes Braden, with the participation of three artists—Leah Lewis, Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann, and Anne Smith—and their four children, who range in age from several months to 3 years. Braden hopes AMS will elevate the voices of artist mothers/caregivers and continue important conversations about communal labor and how mothers can leverage their experiences for positive social change. But most of all, AMS foregrounds the dependency and entanglement of being a caregiver (a loss, in a traditional sense, of personal freedom) as a generative position from which to create art.

This is the second iteration of AMS, the first took place at Rhizome DC during spring 2018.

Washington Project for the Arts

Amy Hughes Braden