Anyone who has spent time mothering knows that it is undoubtedly and irrevocably work. But could it also be an art? Jessica Winton and Sally Morgan certainly think so: Along with fellow artist Ruth Douthwright, they’ve formed The Sense Archive, which is currently showing the exhibition This Body of Work through a partnership between Eyelevel Gallery and Mayworks Festival, on view at the Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery until June 18.
Inspired by the artist Lenka Clayton—who Morgan explains created a home-based residency in which the duties of mothering was presented as its own form of immersive performance art—the longtime friends saw a framework within which to explore “the idea that the body is the archive for everything that’s happening,” as Morgan puts it: “Rather than thinking of motherhood as just being domestic labor, motherhood being these tasks we need to complete, that there’s a huge spectrum of what work our body does,” she says. “So, what is work in connection to our body? It’s emotional labor. It’s physical, because it actually is birthing labor for some mothers; the actual act of mothering that may not be defined just by you know, cis hetero women, is also present—so what is that work?”
This Body of Work contains Winton’s sculptures, which are (emotionally speaking) both reaching for and retracting from her son as he gains independence. It also contains pieces of Morgan’s performance-based and video art that focuses on embodiment (and you can see Morgan perform within the context of the show June 9 at 7pjm and June 18 at 2pm). There’s also a number of fibre art pieces by Douthwright, amongst other works that feel vital and pulse-quickening.
Sitting in a north end cafe, I ask both women what makes the multi-medium show art, when its subject is one that so often isn’t viewed as worthy of the canvas (or even of notice). “‘Whether we’re presenting it to a public audience or not, if it’s something you made, you created, what more is there? Morgan’s arms float up, almost forming the upper portion of a plié, her dancer’s roots showing. “You can call it art, or you can call it a gesture. ” Across the table, Winton adds: “I mean, since Duchamps said ‘all that’s needed is the artist to designate something as art’: I nominate what I am doing as art.”
(As for mothering being labour, let’s just say the The Sense Archive chose Mayworks–a festival celebrating the working class and labour rights and history—extremely on purpose.)
I ask how witnessing a show like theirs would have helped them when they—and their children—were younger. “I mean, just seeing this: I’m over 50 now. There was not really any work about mothers, mothering, when I was young. So just that it purely exists is a step in the right direction,” Winton says, locking eyes with Morgan. “You can work as a mother and announce that you are a mother. Like, that’s even a step.”
Live performance by Sally Morgan at This Body of Work will take place June 9 at 7pm and June 18 at 2pm; the exhibition itself is also on view until June 18 at Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, which is open Tue-Sun 11am-5pm.
This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2023.