Rendering, reassembling, and performing motherworlds
By the sense archive
Presented by Eyelevel Artist-Run Centre in collaboration with Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery
May 26th – June 18th
Opening Reception May 26th, 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Regular Visiting Hours: Tuesday – Sunday from 11:00am to 5:00pm
Location: Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery (923 Robie St)
Admission: FREE
This Body of Work is an interdisciplinary exhibition that grew from self-directed Artist Residencies in Motherhood (ARIM). This Body of Work explores critical feminist performance(s) of motherhood and maternal agency through lived bodily/cellular experiences and locates the body as the initial source and archive for the labour/work of the m/other.
We have created works that span photography, sculpture, sound, video, text, new media, and performance that consider themes of care, trauma, loss, lineage, identity, emotional bonds, oral/object histories, and memory.
We expose the labour, performance, and experience of motherhood and have allowed it to inform our work. We use a critical feminist perspective to disrupt cultural and perceptual norms. We make the work and are the work.
the sense archive employs the word “mother’ as a verb in our approach and in considering our inclusive and extended audience—an audience that includes all those who mother.
The exhibition will take place from May 26th – June 18th at SMU Art Gallery with an opening reception and performances by Morgan and Douthwright on May 26th from 6PM to 8PM.
The exhibition will feature live performances by the artists at the opening reception and on the following dates:
Friday May 26 @ 7pm
Sunday May 28 @ 2pm
Sunday June 4 @ 2pm
Friday June 9 @ 7pm
Sunday June 11 @ 2pm
Sunday June 18 @ 2pm
About the Artists:
the sense archive is interested in exploring, reading, and transcribing the body as the site of narratives that shape us as artists/mothers. We believe in activating research and artistic work that challenges patriarchal ideations of motherhood. We are focused on, and committed to, creating socially engaged work that values the body and the embodied experience.
the sense archive, Ruth Douthwright (ON), Sally Morgan (NS), and Jessica Winton (NS), are white, cis-gendered, artists, educators, and mothers, living and working in Kanata/Canada. Our initial collaborative efforts are focussed on developing our first major project in two parts—a live performance work and a gallery exhibition—titled This Body of Work.
About Eyelevel:
Prioritizing treaty, accessibility, and care, Eyelevel supports the production and presentation of socially-engaged artistic practices through arts programming outside of the traditional white-wall gallery.
Project Land Acknowledgement:
We acknowledge, honour, and are thankful for the land we live with and on. Sally and Jessica live in Kjipuktuk/Halifax located in Mi’kma’ki, the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. This territory is covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship which the Mi’kmaq, Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet), and the Passamaquoddy signed in 1726. Ruth lives in London, Ontario, located on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Chonnonton Nations, on lands connected with the London Township and Sombra Treaties of 1796 and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum.
