Exhibition: The Mother Village at Curio Gallery hosted by Wollongong City Council 2023

The work carried out for this exhibition was based on Dharawal country.

Angela’s submission stood out for its high artistic merit in terms of the quality of her photography and how engagingly she captures her subjects. The concept for Angela’s proposal was based on the shift in community connectedness that had occurred during Covid particularly for mothers. What stood out about Angela’s proposal is her significant community development experience that she used to understand personal and shared experiences, as well as her skill as a photographer to convey that understanding.

The resulting exhibition was a highly engaging exhibition that offered opportunities for audiences to reflect on their own family experiences. Angela’s images candidly captured an intimacy and immediacy in her subjects. As a body of work, the exhibition was a poignant portrait of parenting in extraordinary times, which facilitated connection on a meaningful level, ensuring voices and stories of mothering were made visible.

Cultural Development Coordinator, Wollongong City Council

For my first exhibition, I chose to explore the motherhood community of the Illawarra by connecting with women and learning how they experience motherhood and interact with the people and places around them. This topic felt important as I am a new mother and have noticed when searching for ways to connect with other women that there is a sense of social disconnect in our community. This is particularly evident in mothers with newborn babies and younger children. It seems that women tend to favour in person gatherings but may lack the confidence or knowledge of where and how to access this in community. In no way does this project work ignore the fact that many mothers are quite well connected, particularly those who have older children, as their Mother Village is constantly growing along with their child. There does however seem to be a number of women seeking motherhood companions with no obvious places to turn to.

Throughout my pregnancy and transition to motherhood, I found myself hopeful at the thought of connecting with other women at the same stages as I was only to be disappointed by some of the outlets that women in the past have relied upon. For example, our one birthing class was hosted online (these used to be in person classes that took place over a matter of weeks) and there was no opportunity to interact with other expectant mothers. Midwife home visits had been scrapped due to staff shortages in the first 6 weeks of my son’s life. The mothers group recommended to me by community nurses commenced online and unfortunately, I missed the first session. I tried contacting group organisers to see if I could join in the following weeks but there was no response. Of course I could have kept pursuing this but anyone who has been a new mum will understand that social interactions can feel daunting and you may not be in the right space to actively seek company. What I needed in these times was uncomplicated access to other mums who were also experiencing overwhelm and feeling lost in their new bodies with their new little person. Without this, I found that I was seeking support online, hidden behind a screen where I felt isolated and was not socialising in a meaningful way. It is undoubtedly true that traditional community access points for mothers have dwindled in this post pandemic climate, leaving women in a position where they have to work hard to build a community that they deserve an all access pass to from day one.

It felt important to work with women who are at all different stages of motherhood for this project because there isn’t a time, from conception onwards, that women don’t need other women to help navigate all of the impactful changes that we go through to create and sustain human life. The notion behind The Mother Village is that we all have a place to belong, no matter where we’re at in our motherhood journeys and that we all have people around us who will play a part in raising our children and nurturing our mothers. Through candid conversations and photography, I have begun exploring the ways that mothers connect to community, and the places they find comfort in, and I will continue to uncover what it is that they need to help revive and restore the village. This project would not be possible without the honesty and willingness of the strong women pictured here who are raising our children.

Join @mumsgather as we explore ways that we can continue to be a wholly nurtured and easily accessible community for all mothers.

P.S. Please find blog posts below to accompany the exhibition by clicking on Names.

The black and white images of place were intentionally created to represent a set of old postcards.