(m)other voices: Deirdre Donoghue

(m)other voices

On the 13th of July in the forest of Lilla Hareskov (Denmark), embodying both mother and artist, Deirdre M. Donoghue (Finland) embarks on a journey to gain sight of maternal experiences as sites of knowledge production, as part of Witte de With’s summer program The World Turned Inside Out (May 25 – August 18, 2013). The journey to explore maternal figures as thinkers and producers of knowledge, will take her both physically and figuratively around the Nordic countries, England, Ireland, Alaska, North America, Asia Minor and Tibet. Travelling through time and geographical regions to explore maternal ethos as a possible methodology and mode of knowledge production in the arts and beyond, Donoghue will visit ancient, pre-Christian, early-modern and contemporary times, sites and models of producing and sharing knowledge. In Lilla Hareskov, at the ancient site of the contested groove stones associated with fertility worship, Donoghue will be accompanied by the artists collaborative Oda Projesi (Istanbul), local mother artists and mother scholars for a picnic.

The picnic on site at Lilla Hareskov acts as the first exercise in a search for new orientations points for our being-in-the-world. Orientation points, that don’t fall from a fixed center, but rather from (human) relations held together by an ethos of ultimate hospitality towards the other.

During the picnic participants will be invited to discuss the notions of ‘maternity’ and ‘motherhood’ as possible attitudes towards being-in-the-world, and the relations between hospitality, maternity and the figure of the Other.

(m)other voices: the maternal as an attitude, maternal thinking and the production of time and knowledge

This is the first event of (m)other voices: the maternal as an attitude, maternal thinking and the production of time and knowledge will continue during the Fall with a semi-public reading group taking place in Rotterdam. A reader featuring texts by Sarah Ruddick, Lisa Guenther, Lisa Baraitser, Mark W. Westmoreland, Jacques Derrida and Emanuel Levinas has been compiled by the artist. To receive it by e-mail, please contact info [​at​] wdw.nl.