Traces of Motherhood/2019
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![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/92af174aa20eb7147d6257746e4abc1deb4fab84799c85efa1eb4404d57cf911/Handdoek-traces-of-motherhood.jpg)
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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.