Contemporary Mamactivist Artists: A Forum on Maternal Activist Art for the Studies in the Maternal Special Issue on The Everyday Maternal Practice: Activist Structures in Creative Work, Summer 2016

Open Access

Abstract

This special forum for Studies in the Maternal asks fourteen activist-mother-artists, or "mamactivists", to respond to the following questions: (1) When and why did you start making activist/political work on the maternal? (2) What reception/reaction did you receive for the work? (3) What is the latest activist/political work you have made on the maternal? (4) What shifts do you see from this first work to this last work? and (5) Why is the maternal, in your opinion, important to activist, engaged, political art today? Responses highlight a range of geographic and cultural perspectives, as well as artistic strategies. One commonality between them is that they take the maternal not as a biological facticity, but a rich feminist site of political intervention.