2025 Events
Corinne Botz, Private School Teacher [Milk Factory], 2025
On 4 December, we invited American photographer Corinne Botz to give an online presentation on her recent project Milk Factory.
Corinne was in conversation with Hettie, discussing her long-running project documenting the ubiquitous (yet usually unseen) labour of pumping milk that takes place in the American workplace. Corinne’s project has taken her from the US Capitol to women’s prisons, and has included a series of interviews with women in different professions, as well as a film and photo series.
Assunta and Lou’s Art Club, Primary, Nottingham (2025). Photo by Rebecca Beinart
On 15 November 2025 we hosted Making Room for Art and Children at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham organised by AWP member Assunta Ruocco.
Making Room for Art and Children was an afternoon of intergenerational creativity and conversation for artist parents/carers and children. Jo from AWP shared details on how the organisation operates and supports parents and carers whilst advocating for more inclusive practices in institutions. Mother daughter duo Assunta & Lou offered a relaxed art club where children of all ages and their parents/carers can make and play and share their collaborative journey. The event wass supported by CVAN East Midlands.
Chantal Joffe, Esme (First Painting), 2004, Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro
Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, curated by Hettie Judah and conceived in collaboration with Hayward Gallery Touring has now closed. It was most recently exhibited at VISUAL Carlow in Ireland, where it was joined by additional works from Irish artists and collections.
The exhibition first opened at Arnolfini, Bristol March-May 2024 before travelling to Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham June-September 2024; Millennium Gallery, Sheffield October 2024 -January 2025 and Dundee Contemporary Arts Spring 2025.
Featuring the work of more than sixty modern and contemporary artists, this exhibition will approach motherhood as a creative enterprise, albeit one at times tempered by ambivalence, exhaustion or grief. Acts of Creation will explore lived experience of motherhood, offering a complex account that engages with contemporary concerns about gender, caregiving and reproductive rights.
The exhibition will address diverse experiences of motherhood across three themes: Creation, which looks at conception, pregnancy, birth and nursing; Maintenance which explores motherhood and caregiving in the day-to-day; and Loss, which touches on miscarriage and involuntary childlessness, as well as reproductive rights. The heart of the exhibition is a series of revelatory self-portraits – a celebration of the artist as mother.
There is an catalogue published to coincide with the exhibition. Acts of Creation is an engaging, thought-provoking and richly illustrated must-read on the evolving artistic discourse on motherhood.
On Saturday 27 September Jo Harrison of AWP and guest speaker Charlotte Warne Thomas, hosted a workshop as part of the Festival of Encounters – a series of free-to-attend events hosted across Brixton and sponsored by Lambeth Council.
For their workshop Manifestos of Care and Repair Jo and Charlotte examined the use of the ‘manifesto’ within art practices. The session involved an open discussion around the value and purpose of manifestos as well as working collaboratively to create a new manifesto centering themes of care, parenting and the arts
Lana Locke, Becoming Frogphlem, 2025 (video still)
On Monday 7 July artist and Art Working Parents (AWP) member Lana Locke invited us for a drop-in workshop at Camberwell Space.
The workshop formed part of a new residency and research project by Lana A Feral Plot (Making Sculpture and Other Strategies for Survival) – based on action research in response to the climate emergency in the field of sculpture.
During the session, we watched Lana’s new video work Becoming Frogphlegm (2025) whilst sculpting with salvaged clay and participating in an informal conversation, along with Jo Harrison, examining the conflicting and often contradictory nature of producing art objects whilst living through an ecological crisis.
Lana and Jo also talked more broadly about the experience of being both an artist as well as a mother/parent/carer within an academic environment; examining how the institution impacts an artist’s capacity to produce work and what can be done to create a more supportive and inclusive space for staff and students alike.
IMGAE: Elsa James, fill still: ‘Living in the Wake of the Lust for Sugar’
On Friday 20 June artist Elsa James was in conversation with Hettie Judah discussing her solo exhibition It Should Not Be Forgotten currently on show at FirstSite Colchester and her work in Hettie’s exhibition Acts of Creation.
Elsa is one of the artists who contributed to the manifesto How Not to Exclude Artist Parents and has been a great inspiration to Hettie in her work on art and motherhood.
On Tuesday 29 April we met at The Courtauld Research Forum for a panel discussion on The Impact of Motherhood within Art Schools and Institutions in the UK.
The event opened with three presentations by Dr Kate McMillan, Izzie Kpobi-Mensah and Hettie Judah, followed by a panel discussion with Jo Harrison, Lulu Lockhart and the speakers to discuss their experiences and probe what institutional changes could be made to address these issues. The audience will also contributed to this polyvocal conversation.
The event was organised by The Art Working Parents Alliance (Jo Harrison and Hettie Judah) and Xiaojue Michelle Zhu (PhD Candidate and Associate Lecturer, The Courtauld), supported by Dr Catherine Grant (Reader in Modern and Contemporary Art and Vice-Dean for Education, The Courtauld). This event is kindly supported by the Broadly Conceived network.
On Friday 21 March we had an online talk with Sascia Bailer, curator, academic, activist and mother. Sascia is one of the leading European thinkers on caregiving and motherhood in the arts and she gave us an inspiring presentation on her PhD these and recent book Caring Insfrastructures – Transforming the Arts through Feminist Curating, which you can download for free here.
If you wish to watch the recorded version of the talk, please email artworkingparents@gmail.com
