This Body of Work - 2022-23

by the sense archive 

the sense archive is/are Ruth Douthwright, Sally Morgan, and Jessica Winton in collaboration with David Bobier, Lois Brown, Rebecca Picherack, Andrea Ritchie, Joshua Van Tassel, and Becka Viau.

Work in-progress showing

Thursday December 1, 2022 

7pm 

The Bank Art House 

22 King Street, Welland, ON 

ASL will be provided & The Bank Art House is a fully accessible venue

The performance will be followed by an artist talk-back hosted by Holly Treddenick.  

There will be free bus transportation leaving Toronto at 3pm and returning to Toronto after the talk-back. The pick up location will be emailed directly to those who register.

Some mature content but children and families are welcome and/or childminding provided. 

Care. Loss. Time. Failure. Potential. Our in-progress performance at The Bank is a relational, multisensorial, and immersive experience of the work/labour of motherhood, a worlding of sorts, and a durational installation that a small audience is guided through. What and who perform(s)? How does motherhood perform?  

This work is currently in-progress and being developed through residencies in both Ontario and Nova Scotia. As we produce the work as artists who negotiate the complexities of mothering, we make the work and are the work. 

This Body of Work is a multi-year project by the sense archive that includes an interdisciplinary gallery exhibition, a live performance, and a publication. The project explores critical feminist performance(s) of motherhood and maternal agency through lived bodily/cellular experiences. The work locates the body as the initial source and archive for the labour/work of the m/other and explores the themes of care, identity, trauma/loss, transformation, and lineage. We ask the questions: How do we/you experience motherhood? What is the work of motherhood? Who mothers? What are the practices that continue to sustain patriarchal ideations of motherhood in a liberal, capitalist, and settler colonial society?  

We gratefully acknowledge that the creation of This Body of Work has been supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Nova Scotia, Dancemakers, and The Bank Art House.