Another Mothering
Aamta–Tul Waheed & Lisa Creagh.
Another Mothering is a festival that unites and celebrates the myriad stories and perspectives of mothering to encompass Other Mothers and those that Mother, including but not exclusively non-biological mothers, foster mothers, grandmothers, other family members, friends without children, friends with children who mother others, those who mother parents, those who are separated from children and the many others who offer care and love to others in a way we associate with mothering.
Motherhood is cited as Feminism’s ‘unfinished business’. Rejecting the unpaid servitude of mothering, first-wave Feminists felt forced to leave behind the mothers to secure women’s place in the male world of work.
Much of the original tenants of the Women’s Movement of the 1970s were centred on the right to choose motherhood: abortion and contraception were the first tenets of women's freedom, the foundation upon which other rights could be won.
“Care and compassion are, theoretically, the ethical foundations for most major world religions and philosophies, yet in practice are rarely implemented…
Biological motherhood is not a requirement; for Motherism’s ideals to be effective, non-biological mothers are a key component of this paradigm shift equation.
Without naming this theory precisely, Mothernism makes the case that mothers, fathers, and their children alike - institutions and governments, even - should live with an ethics of care.”
— Julia V. Hendrickson “The Mother-Shaped Hole: Lisa Haller Baggesen’s Mothernism”
Fifty years later, 80% of women in the UK have children, and most are at least wage earners, if not the primary provider in the home. Yet good quality affordable childcare, paid joint parental leave, workplace crèches, breastfeeding and expressing rooms remain a fantasy.
Although paid care for children was among the original demands of the Suffragette movement more than 100 years ago, parents were commonly forced to make difficult choices about paying for childcare or working part-time or not at all in the early years. Working mothers in the UK are half as likely as childless women to work in high-earning professions and eight times more likely to work part-time, with the main reason being little access to affordable childcare.
Inequality is now an issue among women as the wage gap between those who give birth and those who don’t is more significant than that between women and men. In this environment, women who care for others now have more in common with any other carer than they do with their liberated sisters. This is a growing army of unpaid caregivers: Carers UK estimated that in 2022, the number of those providing unpaid care to others in the UK grew to an estimated 10.6 million people, almost a sixth of the population.
This includes grandparents, fathers who care for motherless children, foster parents, children mothering their parents, partners caring for sick or elderly husbands and wives, friends caring for unofficial wards - indeed, anyone with unpaid caring responsibilities.
The ageing population is just one of several demographic changes influencing the growth in shared responsibilities for children. Another is the increasing number of single people who may step in for a nephew, niece, or friend in need.
Whether due to fertility issues or conscious choices, more childless couples may still enjoy time spent with a younger generation. To care is to love, and the shared responsibility of caring for children should be seen as an evolution and a return to traditional and collective responsibility.
Although closely tied to a lack of state provision, including others in the parenting process is potentially liberating, moving child-rearing away from an exclusively female practice as the joy of time with children is spread across generations and biological and chosen families.
‘Another Mothering’ brings these rich stories to the forefront, looking at caring with fresh vigour. Working in small grassroots networks with a team of creatives throughout 2023 -2024, we will tell Another Mothering story in all their myriad forms with food sharing, storytelling, visual art and music, culminating in a city-wide celebration of caring in many states of love, grief, tenderness and joy.
Meet the Team.
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Aamta has over five years of experience within the creative industry and holds a first-class BA Hons in Art Enterprise and an HND in Performance Arts (Production). Her creative practice explores relational & concept art, exploring taboo subjects surrounding Muslim and South Asian women.
She explores shame, honour & culture, investigating the long and short-term repercussions of this within herself and the women she works with through relational workshops.
Aamta's creative practice is inspired by her experiences as a British Muslim woman. Her conflict inspires her with societal issues within her South Asian community, such as gendered stereotypes, the female body, tensions between culture & religion, and the expectations of Muslim women.
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Co-producer
Lisa Creagh grew up in Coventry, where her parents had settled from Ireland in the 1960s. She studied Fine Art and Art History at Goldsmith College and, after graduation, made her way to New York using a grant from The Prince’s Trust. Here, she developed an art practice, combining painting with digital imaging and photography whilst working in the fringes before moving back to Brighton in 2001. From 2001-2009, she supported herself with work in photographic labs whilst exhibiting early works. During this time, she founded The Brighton Photo Fringe (BPF), a vital grassroots network of photographers.
‘Tidy Street’, a co-created site-specific installation, followed in 2006. This Arts Council-funded project during the 2006 BPF was a collaboration with residents to transform their street into a nighttime outdoor exhibition of their private photo archives. It received critical acclaim in press, radio and TV coverage.
A diagnosis of infertility in 2008, resulting from many years of endometriosis, was the impetus for the 'The Instant Garden’, using a combination of digital patterns and floral still life to express mixed feelings regarding years of medicalized fertility treatments. This brought her photography to new audiences and earned her commissions, exhibitions and prizes. It is featured in a 2016 collection by Phaidon on the subject of art and botany and is held in several NHS hospitals and many private collections.
Holding Time began after the unexpected arrival of her daughter in 2012. This work develops ideas and techniques of previous works in combination with techniques and methods employed by activists. It is an open-ended feminist piece designed to create a UK-wide portrait of breastfeeding by collaborating with grassroots groups, health professionals and academics. Since 2017, she has developed a growing team to help produce this expansive project's workshops, audio, animation, video and other outputs.
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