With works by

Anna Gohmert, Renate Liebel, Marie Lienhard, Anna Schiefer and Julia Wirsching

Curated by

Sascia Bailer and Didem Yazıcı

Women* – especially mothers* – continue to perform the majority of unpaid care work, whether in the private or public sphere. In the art world, these inequalities related to caring responsibilities are magnified; the gender pay gap in the arts is higher than the overall societal average and discrimination based on caring work is widespread: “Sex, death, politics: art can show anything today. But children? They are not an issue. Especially for their mothers, they are considered career killers,” says art critic Elke Buhr in the art magazine Monopol. 

Our artistic-activist exhibition and event programming resists such stubborn, patriarchal narratives, as they seem to solidify how care is organised in our society – and thereby only continue to exclude people who provide care. By foregrounding feminist ethics of care – through artistic works and discursive formats – we aim to challenge these discriminatory narratives and explore counter-designs together: 

The exhibition features five Stuttgart-based artists who are also mothers* with works that explore care, reproductive justice, societal role expectations, natural healing, vulnerability and interdependence. The exhibition opens with a public programming that seeks answers to the question: What structural changes in the art field are necessary to address the lived realities of cultural producers with caring responsibilities? 

In lectures, performances and workshops, participants are invited to learn about the relationship between art and care and to collectively explore strategies and demands for addressing the needs of care workers in the arts. 

“Mothers*, Warriors, and Poets: Care as Resistance” aims to connect artists who are parents in the region – and anyone who wants to advocate for these issues. Cultural practitioners with care responsibilities are to be empowered in their work and their working conditions; existing initiatives and energies of resistance are to be brought together to write a collective manifesto for a more just art sector in Stuttgart and the surrounding area. 

“Mothers*, Warriors, and Poets” is an artistic-activist platform founded by Stuttgart-based artists Anna Gohmert, Renate Liebel and Marie Lienhard to question and renegotiate the relationship between artistic production and motherhood*. The platform’s name is inspired by Black feminist Audre Lorde’s self-description, “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” For Lorde, describing herself in several terms at once was central, as it revealed the complexity of her identity as well as her struggles as a Black feminist, artist, and mother* – to be a mother* artist is to be a warrior, and to think radically and evocatively like a poet at the same time. For this edition of “Mothers*, Warriors, and Poets”, the three initiators of the platform invited the artists Anna Schiefer and Julia Wirsching, as well as Didem Yazıcı and Sascia Bailer as curators – all of whom can be identified as independent cultural workers with care responsibilities in Baden-Württemberg.

*We use the term mother with an* to open it up to all people with caring responsibilities, who identify with the term. 

Supported by DAS BÜNDNIS and the City of Stuttgart.

Women* – especially mothers* – continue to perform the majority of unpaid care work, whether in the private or public sphere. In the art world, these inequalities related to caring responsibilities are magnified; the gender pay gap in the arts is higher than the overall societal average and discrimination based on caring work is widespread: “Sex, death, politics: art can show anything today. But children? They are not an issue. Especially for their mothers, they are considered career killers,” says art critic Elke Buhr in the art magazine Monopol. 

Our artistic-activist exhibition and event programming resists such stubborn, patriarchal narratives, as they seem to solidify how care is organised in our society – and thereby only continue to exclude people who provide care. By foregrounding feminist ethics of care – through artistic works and discursive formats – we aim to challenge these discriminatory narratives and explore counter-designs together: 

The exhibition features five Stuttgart-based artists who are also mothers* with works that explore care, reproductive justice, societal role expectations, natural healing, vulnerability and interdependence. The exhibition opens with a public programming that seeks answers to the question: What structural changes in the art field are necessary to address the lived realities of cultural producers with caring responsibilities? 

In lectures, performances and workshops, participants are invited to learn about the relationship between art and care and to collectively explore strategies and demands for addressing the needs of care workers in the arts. 

“Mothers*, Warriors, and Poets: Care as Resistance” aims to connect artists who are parents in the region – and anyone who wants to advocate for these issues. Cultural practitioners with care responsibilities are to be empowered in their work and their working conditions; existing initiatives and energies of resistance are to be brought together to write a collective manifesto for a more just art sector in Stuttgart and the surrounding area. 

“Mothers*, Warriors, and Poets” is an artistic-activist platform founded by Stuttgart-based artists Anna Gohmert, Renate Liebel and Marie Lienhard to question and renegotiate the relationship between artistic production and motherhood*. The platform’s name is inspired by Black feminist Audre Lorde’s self-description, “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” For Lorde, describing herself in several terms at once was central, as it revealed the complexity of her identity as well as her struggles as a Black feminist, artist, and mother* – to be a mother* artist is to be a warrior, and to think radically and evocatively like a poet at the same time. For this edition of “Mothers*, Warriors, and Poets”, the three initiators of the platform invited the artists Anna Schiefer and Julia Wirsching, as well as Didem Yazıcı and Sascia Bailer as curators – all of whom can be identified as independent cultural workers with care responsibilities in Baden-Württemberg.

*We use the term mother with an* to open it up to all people with caring responsibilities, who identify with the term.