Spilt Milk

Spilt Milk: The Darker Side of Motherhood (2012-2015), was a cross-disciplinary exploration between Melind Hetzel and Pia Johnson. Working in collaboration with artist-mothers to create a series of theatrical portraits, we look at the unvoiced, less glamorous and taboo aspects of motherhood and mortality, through a surreal, whimsical and often darkly humorous lens.

This project also seeded a participatory live art engagement process, The M/otherhood Project. In collaboration with social ecologist, Claire Hetzel, this investigation prompted a broader project centred around the complexity of identity transformation and gender equity in parenthood.

In contemporary Australian culture, while family structures are changing immensely, the pervasive representations of motherhood are (still) of happy, heterosexual, married white women enjoying time with adorable children. This project offers an alternative, deeper conversation for women caring for children, creating a unique space to express their complex and diverse lived experience of motherhood.

Through a live art process engaging communities of women, The M/otherhood Project guides participants through a creative process involving social mapping, story-capture and personal image-creation. 

Images: Pia Johnson and Melinda Hetzel with thanks to collaborating artists.