ABOUT
CONTRIBUTE
EN FRANÇAIS
The project brings together found images, contributions from contemporary artists, and original photographs to form a collective visual archive and index of artist mothers at work. It makes visible their presence across time and contexts, and how motherhood intersects with artistic practice and professional life.
Conceived as a collaborative process, the project gathers images from a wide range of sources, including archives, personal collections, and direct contributions from artists. These images document working realities — in studios, homes, and shared spaces — and reflect a plurality of experiences.
The collected material is intended to be developed into a photographic installation, once a substantial body of images has been gathered. This future installation will assemble the archive into a polymorphic body of work, foregrounding the diversity, continuity, and material conditions of artistic labour. The project also seeks to foster dialogue around the recognition of artist mothers and the need for structural support within the art world.
Since 2018, Marie Déhé’s practice has engaged with her own experience of motherhood and its relation to image-making. This project extends that research into a collective form.
Initiated in 2023 through archival research and an open call, Artist Mothers Working continues to grow through ongoing contributions.
Marie Déhé
Marie Déhé is a visual artist based in France.
Working with photography, her practice explores everyday life through a close engagement with her immediate environment.
Since 2018, she has developed a body of work rooted in her domestic space, integrating motherhood and family life into a reflection on the representation of intimacy from a feminist perspective. Artist Mothers Working extends this research into a collective and archival form.
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*The term “mother” is used here to designate a primary caregiver, independent of biological relation, reproductive role, or gender identity.