Braid
2025

Digital print on textile 150 x 150 cm.

Group exhibition "Joy & rage" at Haapsalu City Gallery with Kristiina Aarna, Sandra Ernits, Maris Karjatse and Annika Haas.

Artists approach motherhood through personal experiences, social tensions, embodied and memory-based practices. What connects them is a desire to unsettle traditional ways of representing motherhood, bringing to the fore its complexity, ambivalence, and experiences that have remained invisible. The works presented in the exhibition do not approach motherhood from an idealising perspective; rather, they open up space for diverse interpretations and explore embodiment, memory, mental and physical strain, pain, loss, and the invisible labour of care that often accompanies the role of a mother. Drawing on both personal and collective experiences, the artists move through themes of grief, loss, dependency, recovery, and shifts in identity. In this context, motherhood is not merely a biological condition, but a social, emotional, and linguistic structure within and against which the artists position themselves. The installations, photographs, videos, and sculptures presented here address, among other things, postpartum depression, bodily memory, maternal illness, experiences of poverty, queer parenting, and family dynamics that do not fit within normative frameworks.

Text by Annika Haas