The mother artists campaign

The Mother Artists Campaign is a bilingual print-media and online project addressing the lack of visibility around art-making and motherhood. This project began during the pandemic, a time that disproportionately affected mothers concerning caregiving, labour, employment, and finances. As mothers and artists, we were further isolated from creative spaces where we already felt invisible. The Mother Artists Campaign calls for a new mindset at the intersection of motherhood and art. We have produced three slogan campaigns that take the form of commercially printed signs, a publication, and public, private and online interventions. 

Motherhood is Political/Mother Art is Political

Our first campaign, Motherhood is Political / Mother Art is Political, asserts that neither motherhood nor artmaking work on even playing fields. Art about motherhood and/or mother artists can play an important role in mobilising politics and threaten the status quo.

Motherhood is Political
Mother Art is Political
La maternité : un art politique
Notre art : la maternité politique

Everybody Knows I’m a Mother / Nobody Knows I’m an Artist

Our second campaign, Everybody Knows I’m a Mother / Nobody Knows I’m an Artist, speaks directly to the lack of visibility mother artists face, and the unspoken yet imposed hierarchy placed upon artists assuming both identities.

Everybody knows I'm a mother
Nobody knows I'm an artist
Je suis mère, c'est bien connu.
Je suis artist, le savais-tu?

We created you, we can create art. / No Mothers, No art world.

Our third and final campaign We created you, we can create art. / No Mothers, No art world. announces and reminds the world of our presence, and our importance within the art ecosystem.

We created you, we can create art.
No mothers, no art world.
Nous vous avons créés; nous pouvons créer de l'art.
Sans mères, le monde des arts n'existe pas.

We are done hiding our motherhood from our art. We want to make mother artists a visible and normalised part of the art world. We want mother artists to be included in the reimagining, dismantling, and rebuilding of an art world where community care and caregiving are just as important as any flaccid art made by our male counterparts.

Our campaign is a call to action for mother artists to scream, and for creative spaces and policymakers to hear. We know that visibility matters and the impact it can have. 

The Mother Artists Campaign brings visibility to the conversations around inequities for mother artists. We know that motherhood is political. Power structures and systems dictate the well-being of mothers depending on their demographic status. Embedded cultural norms also reinforce imbalanced parental workloads, and the ever-persistent minutiae of mommy shaming on social media makes motherhood an uneven playing field. High expectations, toxic positivity and the expanding demands of a changing world contribute to overwhelm and burnout in women. Parenting is undoubtedly political, especially for women. Dads don’t get asked where their children were while they succeeded in their fields. Moms do. We want more dialogue about equity in caregiving so that those types of questions become obsolete. The Mother Artist Campaign is a reminder that inequities still exist for women and there is more work to be done.

We graciously acknowledge the support of Balancing Act for the 2025 campaign.

A woman stands holding the yellow and teal mother artist poster saying "La maternié un art politique"
A woman stands in front of of her artwork holding a poster saying "mother art is political" in front of her face
Three women stand in front of the Louise Bourgeois sculpture "Maman" holding yellow and teal posters in front of their faces saying "Motherhood is political" and "Mother art is political"
A group of yellow and teal posters beside a house state "Motherhood is political" and "Mother art is political"
Three people in winter clothing hold up mother artist campaign posters in a snowy park
A poster is buried in snow showing only the word "artist"
Four people in winter clothes stand in front of the Louis Bourgeois sculpture "Maman" holding mother artist posters with the National Gallery of Canada in the background.
A poster is buried in snow showing only the word "mother"
A group of mother artist posters stand in the snow
44.4 collective members stand in front of the Mother Artists Campaign posters
An art exhibition with a wall of colourful mother artist campaign posters
A small child holds a hot pink brochure with mother artist campaign slogans
Closeup of the hot pink and red mother artist campaign posters with the slogans "No mothers, no art world" and "We created you, we can create art"
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