The Mother as a creator
母親如同創造者 / 11 B&W photographs, 2001-2020 and going on
Statement /
母親如同創造者
母親如同藝術家般充滿創造的智慧。母親不但創造了生命,也在親子關係上持續地創造出多樣化的生活體驗。母職是長時期且五味雜陳的過程,非單一品味的甜蜜母子圖或犧牲自我的偉大聖母圖所能表達。而這些大量刻板印象的母親再現,對於處於母職者的我,竟成了一種無以慰藉且難以避免的疲勞轟炸,而這也成為我創作此系列作品的原動力。
從2000年懷孕開始,在不愉悅的孕症與母親無我宿命的恐懼下,我開始嘗試於自身母職中以藝術創作來保有自我的可能性。從一開始紀錄母親的自我如何消失,到在不斷創造的意念下,試圖讓身為母親與藝術家角色的我緊緊結合,以此表露出一種複雜、多樣且具創造性的母職體驗。而這組「母親如同創造者」作品持續進行了20年,它讓我自信地證明,母親除了可以有方法在母職中保有自我,更可以運用創造性來翻轉固有的母職迷思。 從第一張2001年預產期前一天所拍攝的自拍照開始,每隔一段時間,當我們有共同的生命體驗共識時,我會在上一次「我與我的兒子」所拍攝的正式家庭照前拍下我倆的新合照。因此,在時間的推動下,不同年代、不同樣貌的「我與我的兒子」齊一湧現在同一個平面上。由此,不同年代的「我與兒子」及「我們」所共同創作的母子圖,被壓縮在一個奇異空間內不斷地對話,而呈現出複雜、瑣碎且多采多姿的記錄。 這般不斷地創造與自我再現, 如同時光隧道式的視覺再現,不但層層記錄下二十年來的堅持與累積,也讓我們彼此的成長與改變鮮明地展現出來。更重要的是,如此複數多元的女性自我再現概念將計畫持續下去,用生命與時間去挑戰傳統那單一且固定的刻板母親形象。 |
Like an artist, the Mother is wise in her creation. The Mother not only creates a life, but also a continuous matrix of experiences between Mother and Child. Motherhood is a long-term process full of a myriad of complex feelings. This complexity cannot be expressed solely by saccharine images of Mother and Child, nor by the image of the Mother Incarnate willingly sacrificing herself for the sake of her children. All of these stereotypes of Motherhood are for me a tedious, unavoidable harangue which offers me no consolation. It is from this I derive the original motivation for this series.
Since getting pregnant in 2000, I had been burdened with pregnancy pains and the fear of losing my sense of self, and so I attempted to use art creation to preserve my sense of self during motherhood. From recording how in the beginning the Mother had lost her sense of self, to the notion of constantly creating, I attempted to reconcile my role as both Mother and artist to express a complex, diverse, and creative Motherhood. I am confident that “The Mother as a Creator” series, which took twenty years, not only proves that the Mother can maintain her sense of self, but also that creativity can overturn many of the myths associated with Motherhood. Starting from the first self-portrait taken in 2001 on the day before I was due to give birth, my son and I would take a new photo together in front of the previous formal family photo every time we had a common life experience. Thus, the different life stages and appearances of my son and me come together to form a single layer. These Mother and Son photos which at different stages of life are overlaid, and from which we created a dialogue compressed into one peculiar space. From within this dimension emerges a complicated, fragmented and diverse recording of Motherhood. Through this continuous creation and self-reconstruction using time-tunnel artwork, I not only recorded our perseverance and the accumulation of our experiences, I also make it such that we can clearly observe how we grew and developed over twenty years. Most importantly, it is through living and the passing of time that the representations of the many diverse notions of female self-reconstruction can challenge the one-sided and inflexible stereotypes which have traditionally been held towards Motherhood. |