Traces of Motherhood/2019
In 2019, I was invited by Haagse Kunstkring to have a group exhibition together with other graduates from Royal Academy of Art, the Hague. In their historical building, there is an old kitchen space. I decided to make a site-specific work in the kitchen. Kitchen, a place where mothers spend a lot of time from the day a baby is born and where they repeat daily trivia.
It left me a strong impression when my mother-in-law prepared the beschuit (butter cookie) and the muisjes (anise seeds with sugar coating) on a plate for the guest who came to visit the baby. It is the most Dutch experience when I became a mother so I used "beschuit met muisjes" as main element of this project to reflect on gender issues and motherhood by a combination of video with sound (spreading butter and muisjes dropping), sculpture and paintings.
Once there was a mother in this small kitchen. Time stopped moving and only traces of her reflections are left.
It left me a strong impression when my mother-in-law prepared the beschuit (butter cookie) and the muisjes (anise seeds with sugar coating) on a plate for the guest who came to visit the baby. It is the most Dutch experience when I became a mother so I used "beschuit met muisjes" as main element of this project to reflect on gender issues and motherhood by a combination of video with sound (spreading butter and muisjes dropping), sculpture and paintings.
Once there was a mother in this small kitchen. Time stopped moving and only traces of her reflections are left.
A Baby is Born (2m30s)
A baby is born 2m30s from Linhuei Chen on Vimeo.