Mamorost. Where the mother is absent, a forest grows

We warmly invite you to a workshop by the Brno section of the Mothers Artlovers group, accompanying the exhibition Weed–Kiddie, which will take place on May 20 at 17:00 in G99 at the House of the Lords of Kunštát in Brno. The following artists will present themselves on behalf of the Brno group: Hana Magdoňová, Hana Němečková, Kateřina Olivová, Karin Písaříková, and Věra Vtípilová.

The workshop brings to the stage the absent figure of the mother and her creative influence. Through a performative act and projection, it illuminates the gallery space and, thanks to healing physical contact, also the figure of Kiddie, who in our interpretation becomes a powerful natural entity, a wooden Otesánek.

Come experience the exhibition Lištice in a different way and become an active part of it for a moment.

Mothers Artlovers is a group of women that began meeting in December 2016 in Brno and Prague. It is a support group for parents working in the arts. It brings together primarily visual artists, theorists, curators, documentary filmmakers, activists – creative women for whom art is essential to life and whose creative drive has not been stopped by motherhood. It does not exclude father artists, nor women or men who are interested in the topic.

Forms of support can vary and should be based on our needs and wishes: from meeting, sharing, and developing our themes and ideas, through practical parental support (such as childcare, sharing resources, etc.), to institutional support, opportunities for joint creation, inspiration (exhibitions, projects, workshops), and the formation of an international functional platform that allows us to share opportunities and support each other in our work.

A symbolic coda to the exhibition was the intervention by the group Mothers Artlovers (Hana Magdoňová, Hana Němečková, Kateřina Olivová, Karin Písaříková, and Věra Vtípilová). It drew on associations between the Weed-Little Man and Otesánek, as well as on the absence of the mother figure in the paintings.

The first part of the intervention took the form of a plein-air event in the forest, where the mother was performatively embodied by a powerful natural entity — a woman-plant endowed with creative power. Covering the face with clay, fastening branches to the body, extending one’s own physicality with additional limbs.

As part of the public presentation, the artists attempted to transmit this experience to visitors, resulting in a performance-workshop entitled Mamorost (“Mothergrowth”). Where the mother is absent, the forest grows.

Photo: Eva Rybářová