THE PERFORMATIVE POWER OF MATERNAL METAMORPHOSIS IN CONTEMPORARY ART
(2025)
author(s): Yvonne Grul
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022
BA Fine Arts
In this thesis, I explore the phenomenon of maternal metamorphosis in the context of performance art. It looks at the lived experiences of mothers against the light of the radical changes they face, altering their form and way of being. This can be under the influence of natural or external events, such as death and the passing of generations or having to deal with the maternal consequences of political forces. It also considers portraying a mother as something or someone else through performance and play with literal and figurative meaning. Maternal metamorphosis can be portrayed in terms of metaphor, like ‘the mother as intangible heritage’ as an image for the metamorphosed deceased mother. Expressing maternal alterations metaphorically by performance can lead to growth and change, and contribute to the broadening of maternal representations and experiences within visual art.
The slippery trail: The mollusc as a metaphor for creative practice
(2015)
author(s): Karen Savage
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition documents several years of process-driven practice-as-research. The work explores themes of womanhood, embodiment, and autobiography.
Throughout the exposition I argue that the embodiment of process is key to understanding practice-as-research. I propose that practice-as-research projects don't always begin with a ‘final output’ in mind. Instead, the practice of practice-as-research should be reconsidered throughout its development; it should use its potential for liminality. It is the demonstration of a ‘living process’ – living in process. However, what becomes key within the practice is a clear articulation of process, and how the research is recorded as part of that process. In this work, 'writing about practice' and performative practices are integrated, enabling a dialogue between various creative responses as well as offering access points to the research in a variety of forms.
This exposition explores ways in which we live in process through a presentation of text, visual essays, and short film and video pieces.
The work develops from creative artefacts and critical text into a piece of responsive writing, 'A Play of Characters'. This playtext reconsiders some of the influences in the work and explores the imagery of the whole project in a performative context.
The notion of embodiment and a 'living body of work' is developed further through the use of metaphor, in particular the metaphor of the mollusc. I use this to consider how practice evolves alongside process, 'housing' both the work and the process in both material form (the shell) and trace (the snail trail).
Different combinations of this work have been presented as performance installations, both at the University of Portsmouth, as part of my PhD examination in 2010, and at the University of Lincoln, as part of the Gnarlfest in 2014. However, by the very nature of 'living in process' this is a work that continues to evolve and 'live' in different forms. The purpose of this exposition is to explore the work in an accessible online form – one that offers alternative platforms and sequences, creating different possibilities and readings of the practice.
HYBRID NARRATIVES: Approaching Maternal Experience through Collecting, Writing, and Doubling in the Development of Mixed Media Film
(last edited: 2025)
author(s): Denise Hauser
This exposition is in revision and its share status is: visible to all.
Motherhood in cinema is often a side plot – this PhD project in Artistic Research seeks to challenge that. Through collecting, writing, and “doubling” as methods, it explores the maternal experiences of three filmmakers and how these complex realities can take shape in a hybrid film blending fiction, documentary, live action, and animation.
The research addresses a gap in representation, where female doppelgängers and alter egos are rarely linked to motherhood, despite its deeply transformative nature – an obvious foundation for doubling. In filmic narratives, female doubles are often cast as antagonists or disruptions rather than reflections of a mother’s evolving self. The lens post-birth shifts to the child’s development and perspective, leaving the mother’s transformation – her shifting identity and sense of self – largely unexplored.
This project takes a different approach, using interviews, video recordings, animated investigations, and personal reflections to explore the challenges of balancing motherhood and filmmaking. By aligning maternal experience with cinematic doubling, it highlights the multifaceted roles women navigate in both fields.
The research also engages with filmmakers and artists who challenge conventional portrayals of motherhood. Though caregiving perspectives appear in short-form animation, hybrid long-form representations are still rare. Influences include literary works exploring motherhood, identity, and doubling, such as Matrescence by Lucy Jones and August Blue by Deborah Levy.
Rather than aiming for a traditional completed film, the outcome prioritizes the process. It includes a synopsis and excerpts from the evolving script Make Her See, alongside documentary footage, interviews, animation tests, and live-action experiments. Incorporating doppelgängers and animated alter-egos, the project blends realism and surrealism to examine a woman’s vulnerabilities and resilience as she redefines herself.
This artistic research expands the representation of motherhood in mixed media film, connects the maternal experience to cinematic doubling, and opens new possibilities for nuanced maternal narratives.
Ixodos2019: Notes 1
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Chrystalleni Loizidou, Someone has to do this
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
We hereby begin to frame the internationally collaborative work of Ixodos to be reviewed, and propagated by the Research Catalogue and its affiliate institutions.
This exposition is based on questions initially asked by/with artist Livia Moura, Carolina Cortes, Bianca Berdardo, for Instituto Mesa.
Ixodos is an international platform for transversal-translocal art exchanges, facilitating and accompanying residencies, projects, exhibitions, the sharing of knowledge, and the building of our common soul and greater selves.
These art exchanges are not just between artists and art institutions but also between social, political and ecological projects and movements around the world, starting from Cyprus and Brazil. Ixodos was ritually initiated In June-August 2018 by Carolina Cortes, Chrystalleni Loizidou, Evanthia Tselika, and Livia Moura in Greece and Cyprus, initially in connection with Hippocrates' Garden in the island of Cos, It generated its second residency programme at A Casa Lar, Rio de Janeiro, in June-August 2019.
Ixodos é uma plataforma de intercâmbios, trocas, facilitando e acompanhando residencias, projetos, exposições, o compartilhamento de conhecimento, e a construção e expansão de uma alma comum e de nossas existências.
Esta troca artística não é apenas entre artistas e instituições artísticas, mas também de projetos e movimentos sociais, políticos e ecológicos (ambientais) no mundo, começando com Chipre e Brasil.