The exhibition comes at an apt time. With International Women’s Day round the corner (8th of March), the project focuses on 12 working mothers and their experiences juggling various
responsibilities including, working from home, childcare and home schooling, assuming these roles during an exceptionally emotional period.
Jim Reid, Lead Researcher remarks:
“Each of the mothers had worked to develop a career or business in her own terms however lockdown quickly ended or constrained this independence.
In particular, while some mothers experienced and negotiated with their partners an equal share of effort in the home, the majority of mothers in the study did more education and emotional work with the children during lockdown. Consequently, where work was shared the type of work was not.”
To celebrate the launch of the exhibition, the museum will be hosting a free webinar on the 10th of March hosted by mother, journalist, campaigner, and presenter Anna Whitehouse (@Mother_Pukka). Sign up to this event here. The event will focus on the research findings, creative processes and experiences of the women that took part in the project, with Jim Reid, Fran Monks and two of the mothers a panellists.
As pointed out in the research report provided in the exhibition: ‘All of the mothers in the study invested significant energy and time in personal and family emotion work. Significantly, no one in authority sought the advice of mothers and while they were asked by loved one’s ‘how they were doing’, no one asked what they needed. A consequence of the response to the pandemic was to silence mothers as both care givers and in terms of their own care needs.’
In this way, the exhibition gives a voice to mothers and their pictures and experiences told in their own words enables visitors to place a face and identity to the women involved.
The online exhibition will run for six months, ending in August 2021.
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