“I think it is especially hard for the creative people to become parents and lose the passion for everything else for a while. The shift of identity and the strength of energy to create.”

Titled Sorry I Gave Birth I Disappeared But Now I’m Back, published by Trolley Books, the book celebrates the need for an honest conversation surrounding the messiness and contradiction that comes with becoming a mother. It rallies against the expectation to constantly maintain an unrealistic vision of strength, joy, and empowerment before, during and after pregnancy. “In the midst of all the vulnerability, the pain, the tiredness and mess, they tell you: ‘Remember to stay desirable too, so your partner sees the same woman he fell in love with.’ How should I stay mysterious? I’m bleeding, leaking.” 

As an artist, Galdi felt an immense shift in identity when she had her baby. She gained a new persona, with new responsibilities, pulling her away from a practice of prolific creativity. “I think it is especially hard for the creative people to become parents and lose the passion for everything else for a while,” she says. “The shift of identity and the strength of energy to create.” She wants to normalise these experiences, so that mothers never feel that they are failing, and are able to enjoy the early precious moments with their newborns without the added pressure of productivity. The book creates a space where that vulnerability can be shared.

“I’m not the first one to talk about it, but for some reason my voice is having a moment,” says Galdi. “And I’m really happy that it is. No one tells you how to do it the right way. Even though I had an incredible support system around me, you’re really alone when this happens. You can’t prepare for [motherhood], however much you read.”

With a foreword written by friend and mothering companion, Charlotte Jansen, the book is just larger than A6 in size with an exposed spine. Designed by Emma Scott-Child, the images are printed on an array of textured paper stocks. “The size of it is meant to fit in a woman’s bag,” Galdi explains. “I want it to be like a Bible that you can pass down to your best friend, to your daughter. Like a codex for mothers and parents.”

“Irony is a way of surviving and coping with reality. Every human being has a mother. So when you look at this book, you will know how much your parents have done for you.”

As I became acquainted with Galdi’s book, I showed it to my sister-in-law, who has two small children aged three and five. As she turned the pages, every so often she let out a subtle exhale and nodded her head in compassion and understanding. She repeats the words, “Where is my village” written in red marker somewhere in the middle. She also smiles, saying: “Yes, this is it,” pointing to the image of Galdi’s baby crawling towards her as she sits on the loo, and the overflowing, pooey nappy, and the baby dragging itself out of the frame leaving behind a snail-trail of a pee stain on the bed sheet.

The use of candid humour and creativity is an important part of the storytelling. It is the giggle, and the sigh that follows the long, reassuring hug. “Irony is a way of surviving and coping with reality,” says Galdi. “Every human being has a mother. So when you look at this book, you will know how much your parents have done for you.”

Galdi is in the midst of a tour of book launches around Europe. The Hungarian artist has already held events at Unseen Amsterdam with Erika Deak Gallery, TJ Boulting in London, BOP in Bristol and the Martin Parr Foundation. This weekend, she will also be presenting her book at Paris Photo on 12 November, at the TJ Boulting booth, and at Rupture et Associes (Paris) on 10 November.

Our conversation turns to the question of success and timing. The images in the book were made six years ago. Yet, back then, the audience that so enthusiastically receives it today was not as open to the idea. “In the beginning I was told, it’s just temporary, you’ll get over it, and to carry on with making ‘art’,” she recalls. Perhaps it is due to a change in attitude and openness that followed the Covid-19 lockdown, that people speak more openly about difficult, personal experiences. “[The pandemic] made people more vulnerable and more honest, maybe. Many people resonate with my book, whether they have children or not.” Perhaps it is a sign of an expanding space where motherhood and childbirth is seen for all its complexity, without an unnecessary, one-dimensional romanticisation of the experience. Or, that more people are willing to listen. 

“My dream for this book is to show people it’s ok and to help them feel that they’re not alone.”

So is this success, a breakthrough? For Galdi, it is important for the book to be seen in traditional spaces like galleries and museum shops; she hopes that she can show the work as an interactive exhibition soon. She believes that only through introducing it into a wider archive, will the book’s message be validated and have a chance at making a valuable contribution to the artistic canon, and widespread sentiment and education. “If I could print another million copies I would send this book to every school in all the world. A book in every library,” she says.

Ultimately, though, the book has a clear purpose. “If my book raises conversations and questions people’s certainty about what they think is right or not… For every time this book made someone smile, I would be so happy. My dream for this book is to show people it’s ok and to help them feel that they’re not alone.” She adds: “I want to see it on a nightstand. My friend texted me to say that she fell asleep with the book. That’s what I want.”

Sorry I Gave Birth I Disappeared but now I’m Back by Andi Galdi is published by Trolley Books, with a foreword by Charlotte Jansen.

The photographer will be signing copies of the book at Rupture e Associes, Paris on 10 November and the TJ Boulting booth, Paris Photo, on 12 November

Can you describe your experience of growing up in Beypore, Kerala?

I fondly remember Beypore’s beautiful nature and pleasant people. Looking back now, I can, however, appreciate how conventional the society was and how much it influenced my upbringing. For instance, growing up as a young girl, we were always told how to dress and talk in order to fit into the perfect ‘good girl’ box. It is almost like there are walls that the society builds around children to mould them to fit someone else’s belief system. Such patriarchal and narrow-minded attitudes left me perplexed and unsure of my own capabilities.

Is there a message behind your project, Naadu?

Naadu is an examination of societal conventions in Beypore through the eyes of a little girl who grew up there. The work is an attempt to see a younger version of myself in the same area after 10 years. I’m trying to convey that many girls like myself and Ananya [a girl in the project] are inquisitive about the world beyond our town and want to break free from the cocoon that we live in. I want to stimulate discussions on topics, including mental health, sexuality, the body, menstrual health, relationships and gender through the work – vital subjects that are not discussed enough with young girls, leaving them clueless. 

I wish schools taught us about sex education and the importance of menstruation health in addition to science or maths. The right to education and information should not be confined to textbooks that simply teach skills for a minimum profession but should also assist a person to thrive as a human being. I want to encourage young children from small towns to be interested, to ask questions, to express their opinions, and to follow their hearts. 

Tell us more about this portrait [above]. 

There’s a lack of dialogue around mental health where I come from. When you live in a bubble of societal conventions, you get imbalanced about your own opinions and beliefs. This image of Aarsha sitting in the living room on a dreary day is representative of me while I lived in Beypore: confused, depressed and longing for a conversation.

How did you come to practise photography?

As a jewellery designer, I began photographing my designs during my undergraduate studies. After working on successful commercial campaigns in India, I became aware of beauty and gender ideals prevalent in commercial photography, deciding to explore the themes of gender binary and relationships in my own work. 

How would you describe your photographic practice? 

I enjoy photographing people open to exploring intimacy and sexuality. Sociocultural issues, such as heteronormativity and LGBT partnerships, were not discussed in my hometown. It’s a conscious decision to investigate themes that are still unspoken in rural India – places like Beypore – to unearth experiences that were either missing from my childhood or the community in which I grew up. 

@kee_dinesh

The term ‘chosen family’ originated in the LGBTQIA+ community to describe familiar relationships born out of necessity when people are rejected or disowned by their biological family. This profound and vital kinship manifests throughout our collective queer history, from the Harlem Drag Balls in the 1920s to the AIDs crisis in the 80s. Now it’s more broadly used by society to describe close bonds between people formed by choice. These relationships replicate the love and support of the family unit when biological relations are unavailable due to loss, proximity, trauma or simply incompatible needs.

The show builds on the draw of leading icons such as Nan Goldin, who presents her intimate series dedicated to actress and writer Cookie Mueller. The duo became friends in the summer of 1976 in Provincetown, and their friendship traversed different cities and continents until Mueller’s death due to AIDS complications in 1989. The images express a genuine bond, responding to big and full moments of life, from Mueller’s marriage to Vittorio Scarpati, her relationship with her son Max and her early death, imaging her lovingly decorated open casket. Like all of Goldin’s work, the act of photographing becomes part of a primal bond with her subjects, a love language that knows no boundaries and is omnipresent.

Chosen Family celebrates complexity, inviting the viewer into a deeper questioning of the institution of family within society, its limitations and impacts. In Charlie Engman’s Mom, the artist collaborates with his mother, Kathleen, to challenge society’s often reductive perception of the nurturing mother. Together, they refuse to condense her identity and their relationship, insisting on the pluralities of existence. Pixy Liao builds on dismantling labels and fixed roles with her work Experimental Relationship. Through play and humour, she subverts the idealised dynamics of heterosexual relationships, shifting gender roles and undoing years of cultural conditioning. Both artists animate how the camera is a collaborative tool in rerooting the notion of family in more expansive terms.

For Alba Zari, the reality of family is entrenched in the Christian cult she was born into, known as The Children of God (now called The Family International). Founded in California by David Berg in 1968, the cult was reported to encourage sex with minors and force women into prostitution as a recruitment strategy. The practice also tragically separated the ‘Jesus Babies’ – the children conceived in the process – from their mothers. In Occult, Zari metabolises her personal experience through various sources, including cult propaganda, educational materials, comics, video stills and her family album. In this collision of materials, she uncovers the dissonance of belonging in the context of sexual abuse and colonial practices disguised as Christian evangelism.

The familiar bond is an indelible part of who we are. In refusing to condense the critical way it shapes how we move through the world, we can imagine new possibilities of togetherness. Through radically divergent visual languages, Chosen Family illuminates our instinct to belong, to live in community and declare loyalty to one another.

Chosen Family – Less Alone Together is on show at the Fotomuseum Winterthur until 16 October 2022

Chosen Family – Less Alone Together is published by Christoph Merian Verlag, with texts by Lucy Gallun, Stefan Länzlinger, Nadine Wietlisbach, Benjamin von Wyl et al.

In just nine months, the account expanded from work by Arieli and her circle of friends to 20,000 submissions taken by mothers from over 30 countries, and counting. The platform became a stage for intimate entanglements with strangers – a portrait of motherhood during an unprecedented period of history. The images, shot by photographers including Ying Ang, Bri McDaniel, Kate Peters, Anh Wisle, Siân Davey, and Rose Marie Cromwell span the gamut of play to exhaustion. Tender, direct and honest – their gesture of vulnerability converges many forms of joy and struggle.

“On one hand, the walls seem to be closing in on you,” says Arieli. “There’s this underlying current of fear and menace. On the other hand, everything’s illuminated. All the little moments of beauty, connection and humour shine through. I think you get your power back by documenting this tension. And in sharing images, you feel reassured that we’re all going through very similar things.” Arieli describes the project as, “the emotional landscape taking place in people’s homes”. In many ways, it’s the desire to be accountable to the everyday that makes Eye Mama so captivating. As mothers, most of our intense struggles and joys occur in the ordinary – this is where the constitution of parenting takes place.

“It was important to me that this project not be reduced to one vision. There are many, many visions through many eyes, in many homes. Previously, when I saw images of motherhood in culture, they’re always too white, too clean, too perfect or too kooky. There was nothing poetic yet realistic that made me feel seen and part of something.”   

Surprisingly, the recurring presence of mirror selfies that punctuate the collection are some of the most disarming images. Bodies are draped over bodies as each mother returns the viewer’s gaze with a quiet intensity. At first, they read ordinary. Humble. Familiar. Yet en masse, they feel more like an act of visibility – a proof of existence. For the photographers, but also for the community. They are grounding amid the chaos, silently communicating a shared history.

“It was important to me that this project not be reduced to one vision,” says Arieli. “There are many, many visions through many eyes, in many homes. Previously, when I saw images of motherhood in culture, they’re always too white, too clean, too perfect or too kooky. There was nothing poetic yet realistic that made me feel seen and part of something. In creating this platform, I really found my tribe. Something I didn’t even realise I was missing.”   

Beyond visibility, the feelings that Eye Mama evoke for its contributors and viewers generate a social impact. A community has assembled itself through the simple gesture of making and sharing images. This is a brave act in itself, and has not been without challenges, with Instagram threatening and momentarily deleting the platform earlier this year.

The images situate our narrative within the world while recognising the persistent struggle amid the ever-changing conditions of pandemic parenting. Eye Mama is a space to hold each other, share what is sacred between us and remind us to be witnesses to each other. While perhaps the most interesting and profound things that motherhood offer will never be captured by the camera, the practice of image-making as catharsis, connection, comfort and community gives us an entry point to talk about impossible things. 

For more on EyeMama, you can head to the website or Instagram

Eye Mama: Poetic Truth of Home and Motherhood (teNeues Verlag GmbH) is out June 2023

“In Chinese culture, it is more about seeking harmony as a collective rather than being individual. So when the child is gone, it has a big impact on the roles we play [in the family].”

Born and raised in Beijing, Siqi Li belongs to the one-child generation. When she was little, it seemed normal – all the families around her were the same. But as she grew up and left to study for a BA in London in 2017, she became more aware of her parents’ attachment to her and the strain of the separation. Up until then, Li had “no one to share my parents’ care with, which made us have a stronger bond and kinship with each other. It gave them a sense of role and duty – it’s such a big part of their identity.” She adds: “In Chinese culture, it is more about seeking harmony as a collective rather than being individual. So when the child is gone, it has a big impact on the roles we play [in the family].”

As Li began studying for her MA in photojournalism and documentary photography at London College of Communication, from which she graduated last year, the Covid-19 pandemic hit. She was stuck in the UK, unable to return home to China for two years. “I progressed a lot in that time, not only in myself but my understanding and knowledge of photography,” she says. “I became interested in how I can use it to look into my family and get to know our narrative better.”

“The aesthetic reveals the tone of the project.”

The result is her project, Empty Nest. Li’s photographs draw you in quietly. Each image is a soft expression of a thought or feeling, while complementing the broader narrative. In one, a flowery dress is laid out on a bed in an empty room. The sense of absence and longing is palpable. Short, poetic texts, written by Li, describe images from the photo archive of her mother and father’s childhood memories. Both parents come from large families with many siblings.

Li recalls how upon reading Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida (1980) she began to consider his theory of the punctum – a detail of an image that invokes a unique meaning to the viewer. Li explains: “For me it was hard to find that in certain [archival] photographs, because it’s more like a timeline, a sign of how we have progressed.” She adds: “I didn’t want to include [the archive] in a straightforward way because the images are very intimate and close to me… So ‘writing them down’ is a way for me to interpret and make them mine, adding another layer of emotion and fluidity.”

Li also draws on symbolism. Still lifes of eggs, flowers and butterflies allude to fragility and tension. “The aesthetic reveals the tone of the project,” she says. “But these things symbolise something good – like offspring and freedom. The project is about separation. But also rebirth, and how we come to terms with our new selves while still within a family narrative.” 

siqi-li.com

“There are some humorously ambiguous images, a little bit of flatness in energy, or less happy undercurrents. But we removed some of the consciously negative images because those moments felt more private somehow.”

Just before the Covid-19 pandemic, Bolongaro started to photograph his wife Charlotte, daughter Rudy and son Ivor, and occasionally his mother-in-law. As he observed, he realised that the very family structure he was sceptical about was wonderful under his own roof. “I still have doubts about it, but the lockdown reinforced to me that my family can work. It was a process of thinking, aren‘t I lucky, of being grateful that we had the conditions for our unit to function,” he recalls. The images became an ongoing project; in them we see kids jumping on beds and shadow puppet silhouettes, forts, costumes, dance routines, loo-roll constructions, all emblazoned in bright colours and textures. It is the joyful chaos of daily play. However, conscious that his economic, social and class conditions have an important part to play, Bolongaro adds: “This is not something I take for granted.” 

The lockdown period intensified the home environment. Nevertheless, for Bolongaro it was more important to reflect the positive atmosphere in the household at the time. “There are some humorously ambiguous images, a little bit of flatness in energy, or less happy undercurrents,” he says. “But we removed some of the consciously negative images because those moments felt more private somehow.”

There are other reasons for this too. Practically, during difficult moments, Bolongaro had to “engage and participate” in the situation as a father. Also, he wanted to make sure that the children were comfortable with the images as well. “Rudy is of the generation that‘s grown up with Snapchat and TikTok, so she’s starting to get interested in the vagaries of [image-sharing]. We talked about it, and wanted to include things that represented this time, while being comfortable with it being seen publicly. Now that she’s older, she is rightly becoming protective of her privacy and body.”

The images are collated in an experimental book: Gravity Begins at Home. Designed by Ben Weaver and published by Here Press, the publication reflects the project’s unpredictable narrative with its grey cardboard slipcase covered in stickers, which houses four concertina fold-outs. The structure allows viewers to flip, expand, and fold the images. “The emotional dynamics and the dynamics of play are constantly moving,” Bolongaro says. “Finding a way to represent that through the edit felt totally necessary.” 

The title is from a song by the late poet and musician Ivor Cutler. His introductory words, printed on the back of the slipcase, aptly illustrate the images’ quirky complexity: “Firstly, I try to stress the importance of home and the family. I feel they are terribly important. And secondly, I try to stress the fact that the theory of gravity is a lot of nonsense.” 

@bandini3000

Gravity Begins at Home is published by Here Press and available now

In 2014, Ying Ang began working on a project titled Bower Bird Blues, ruminating on themes surrounding family and the home. She had just met her now partner. Based in Melbourne, Victoria, it was her first experience of a committed relationship, and she tentatively started to think about settling down. A couple of years later, Ang became pregnant, and everything changed. “The reality of home and family became concrete, in the way of pouring a concrete slab – inexorable and hardening to an irrefutable truth,” she explains. “In a way, I began an idea in 2014, a sketch. [But] the meaning of what I was photographing became apparent when I gave birth in 2017. It took on its true form in the years that followed.”

The result of this transition is The Quickening: A Memoir on Matrescence, a self-published, hand-made book due for release in the first week of May to coincide with World Maternal Mental Health Day.

When Ang gave birth, the new identity that Dr. Stern describes proved hard to comprehend. The unexpected and confusing sense of loss left Ang in an unfamiliar space of angst and uncertainty. She describes feeling as if her world shrunk; old priorities of career progression, travel, art and friends faded away. The only thing that bore significance was the survival of the baby in her arms. “Time becomes abstract and governed by the child’s needs and circadian rhythms,” she explains. “I have no understanding of how time relates to the moment I noticed I had completely lost my former identity and became at odds with my new one.”

“The experience of new parenthood was something that had always seemed very opaque [to me] as an outsider. When it happened, I drowned in questions. I didn’t understand what was happening to me on multiple levels, I was confused at the lack of meaningful exploration in literature, art and cinema.”

Ang’s depiction of matrescence is layered and complex. Her images blend the gentle and soft, with a strain and rawness that becomes all-consuming. Velvety skin is enveloped in warm, delicate light. But, motifs of that tenderness behind misted glass at once suggest fullness and a claustrophobic repetition. The narrative is textured and sensual; it mirrors the intensity of Ang’s lived experience, one that she feels she was desperately unprepared for. “The experience of new parenthood was something that had always seemed very opaque [to me] as an outsider,” Ang recalls. “When it happened, I drowned in questions. I didn’t understand what was happening to me on multiple levels, I was confused at the lack of meaningful exploration in literature, art and cinema. I felt betrayed by a society at large that seemed to deliver impossible standards of what it now means to be a woman and a mother.” This thirst for answers, and indeed, outrage, was only to be satisfied through interrogation and work. “Curiosity is always at the genesis of a project,” Ang says. “The meaning is created as the work progresses.”

Ang’s story is unreservedly honest. It is both personal and universal – one that may only be recognised by other mothers but not expecting ones. This, she says, is why it is important to tell. “Humans go through very particular transitions in their lives where physiologically, socially and psychologically they change in a dramatic way. The first time it happens, it is from infancy to toddlerhood… The second time is during adolescence, and the third is usually during motherhood.” The first two transitions are explored thoroughly in research and academia, Ang explains, but motherhood is not. “I hope to shed some light in that dark place.”

yingangphoto.com

The Quickening: A Memoir on Matrescence is handmade, and is due for release on 05 May 2021, to coincide with World Maternal Mental Health Day. Limited edition copies are available to pre-order now.

Documentary

Her ongoing work, I Wake To Listen, is a continuation of the work that began with the birth of her son, Charlie, and her first experiences of motherhood. Living in a static caravan with her partner while they save money to buy a house, Wood found her world small and close, filled with the daily rhythm of child-rearing, and the constant refrain of its various bodily fluids. “It’s such a fundamental process; it’s so universal,” she says, “but also I found it quite shocking. So having the images does help me; it’s about controlling that [shock] a little, because I’m documenting it.”

Wood began to turn the camera on herself, a new photographic territory for her. “I knew that I wanted [the self-portraits] to be honest, and it’s hard looking at them because they’re not the way I would like to be seen by the world,” she explains. The work portrays the photographer in pyjamas, breastfeeding, her expression often weary. “The initial self-portraits were a lot harsher, and that reflected how I felt at the time: everything was so raw,” she says. “But then there’s a kind of reconciliation. We all have these different stages in our lives; we’re all very nuanced. The therapeutic part is being able to reconcile those different sides of myself.”

“Nature is so beautiful, and I do think mothering can be a little over-romanticised sometimes; sometimes I’m unsure about whether I should be linking the two together so much.”

This reconciliation is embodied particularly by the rich presence of nature within the work. Wood’s caravan is surrounded by it on all sides, and she looks out onto an oak tree, which we watch cycle through bareness and into the full flourish of summer through her lens, the windows misted with dew. “Nature is so beautiful, and I do think mothering can be a little over-romanticised sometimes; sometimes I’m unsure about whether I should be linking the two together so much,” she reflects. “But then, also, nature can be very harsh and brutal.” Mice nest beneath the caravan, and in the summer the surrounding bramble bushes grow so large that they twist through the gaps in the windows. “It’s constantly encroaching on us; it’s all-consuming,” Wood says. “The very early stages of becoming a mother were like that… In a way, nature was reflecting that for me.”

Wood is dedicated to reflecting this kind of duality: that such a primal experience can be as gorgeous as it is challenging. The kitchen sink overfills; the laundry hangs quietly in the light; her son has porridge on his face, and the oak tree comes into bud outside. Wood continues to use photography to make sense of her world. “It’ll keep changing, because our family will change as we go through different stages. I’m always going to be taking photographs of us all,” she says. Will the project ever be concluded? “I believe in feeling things out, so I’ll know as I move through it. I think it’s really important to remain curious.”

naomi-wood.com