Live Art and Motherhood: A Study Room Guide on Live Art and the Maternal

This Study Room Guide on Live Art and Motherhood features fourteen individual artists and two artist collectives working in the mediums of Live Art and performance around the topic of the maternal. Motherhood and the maternal are difficult terms. There is an inherent essentialism and biology is often assumed. For us, motherhood refers to the lived experience of mothering regardless of our route to it, whereas the maternal refers to the study of and representations of motherhood. All of the contributors in this volume are mothers but we hope this volume is of interest to both those who have cared for children and those who have not, after all, we all have direct experience of being m/othered. We are all first of all natals before we are mortals (thank you Hannah Arendt).