T A P E Collective Presents Bonded.
Monday, 17 January 2022
Image: Ada Vs. Abramovic, Hannah Cooke, 2018
Films made by mothers who are moving image artists and filmmakers working with themes of motherhood, pregnancy, birth, fertility, mental health and breastfeeding. Inspired by the work of the Procreate Project and the artists they support, a visceral programme takes shape. Expressed through humorous animation, documentary or taking an experimental approach, these textured works express the repetition, labour and creation of motherhood.
Against The Current
Linda Flint, Hildur Gladwin, Jane Harris
15'
1985
UK
An experimental documentary which takes both an historical and a contemporary look at the lack of control women have over their own bodies, focusing mainly on childbirth and developments in reproductive technologies.
Pump
Helen Benigson
11'
2020
USA
The video explores economies of (m)others, bodies and pain, with particular reference to breastfeeding trauma, the technology of breast pumping and mastitis. The video traverses a medical, maternal body and that of the sexualised or desired body. The character of the stripper becomes a metaphor for a labouring woman as both a breastfeeding (m)other with mastitis but also as an objectified version of a performing, working body.
Jude
Helen Benigson
24'
2020
USA
“Jude” (2020) is the portrait of a former Rebbetzin, (m)other and drummer and their exclusion from an Orthodox Jewish community as they come out as non-binary and acknowledge their sexuality, using technology, social media and the Internet as tools for exploring their performance of self and the construction of an alternative network of friends around their new identity. As one of those friends, and an active member of the Jewish community that Jude is excluded from, this work has a particular bearing on my own activity as a (m)other researching what it means to “speak” through tongue-tied maternality.
Postpartum
Henriette Rietz
4'
2020
Germany
The chaotic phase in life of a new mother. Pumped up with hormones and lacking sleep, this intense time has burned deep into the protagonist’s heart. A honest and very personal insight in the world of an overwhelmed mother, who seriously thought that parental leave would become a sort of sabbatical.
Ada Vs. Abramovic
Hannah Cooke
10'
2018
USA
The slow motion video shows Hannah Cooke breastfeeding her daughter Ada in an exhibition like setting.
They are sitting in front of a woman in a red dress that looks like Marina Abramović in her performance “The Artist is Present”, which was shown at MoMA 2010.
Hannah Cooke wants to confront the Artist Marina Abramović with her negative statement about the compatibility of maternity and art made in an interview
Hera
Alexa Seligman
7'
2020
United Kingdom
HERA retells the Greek myth of the birth of Hephaestus in which the goddess Hera reproduces through parthenogenesis or self cloning.