Meet the team
Dyana Gravina
Founder and creative director
Dyana Gravina is an artist, facilitator, activist and art producer based in London. She is a women-artists-mothers’ rights advocate, and is the founder and creative director of the Procreate Project. She has worked for over a decade in the entertainment industry, events and the contemporary arts. Independently working for other organisations and agencies, she has led international productions and established collaborations with brands and institutions including the Venice Biennale, IPM International Music Conference, The Devine Comedy musical theatre, Goldsmiths University of London, Royal College of Art, LADA, and Create London.
Paola Lucente
Director and Curator
Paola Lucente is a London based independent curator, with bachelor in Visual art and a Master in Art Management Psychology. She worked several years in the contemporary art scene, for names like Zabludowicz Collection in London and Guggenheim Museum, Marian Goodman Gallery, Scope and Volta art fairs in New York.
Alena Beranzoni
Mother Art Prize coordinator
Alena Beranzoni is a London-based producer and manager with master degrees in Intercultural Communication and Cultural & Creative Industries. Having worked in the arts sector for over 10 years she has realised a wide portfolio of cross-cultural projects and collaborations with prominent art organisations in the UK, Russia, Europe and the USA.
Elisa Fontana
Head of educational programme for the Mother House Studios
Elisa is Play Therapist, Social and Emotional Learning Facilitator, Early Years Teacher and Relational Artist. She currently works as a project manager, consultant and therapist in the educational sector in the UK. She has been leading community art projects, training and consultancy in Italy, Switzerland, India, Turkey, Egypt and the UK.
Chiara Di Zacomo
Media and communication intern
Chiara is an art historian with an MA in Curatorial studies in Rome. She started to build up her working experience in the contemporary Roman art scene, as assistant of the conceptual artist Roberto De Simone. She also worked in art galleries in Rome, and collaborated with Roma Radio Art Fair and the 54th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia. Chiara moved to London to find new ispirations.
“Through art, we want to unpack and shed light on stereotypes and assumptions that women cannot pursue their creative goals when raising children.”
Advisors board:
- Sylvie Gormezano, Director of Picture This Productions and Chair of the Association of Women Art Dealers (AWAD)
- Marcelle Joseph, Director and Curator of Marcelle Joseph Projects
- Elizabeth Neilson, Director of the Zabludowicz Collection
- Laura Godfrey-Isaacs, Artist, Midwife, Feminist academic & activist. Founder of Home Live Art
- Pauline De Souza, Director of Diversity Art Forum
Ambassadors:
- Bracha L. Ettinger
artist-painter, artist-theorist, psychoanalyst and philosopher, pioneer thinker on the matrixial space and the maternal subject.
- Antonella Gambotto-Burke
critic, journalist and novelist - Nora Weller
Executive Director at Cambridge Academy of Global Affairs – a pioneer in promoting peace, reconciliation and cultural exchange through advancement of women’s rights and art and cultural heritage protection
Thoughts from the founder
Mothers should be supported. There is a profound need in society of understanding what motherhood means, the invisible unpaid labour of caring for a child and raise him or her into an adult in this society should be evaluated and recognised and not ignored.
Furthermore, women should be able to talk loudly about each aspect of their life as mothers. They should not feel inhibited during sex, pregnancy, not during birth and not after.
You cannot be inhibited when creating art as you cannot feel inhibited when creating life.
The art of motherhood should be normalised, felt, extemporaneous, and not judged as boring, or not “sexy” enough to reach the big audience.
To me art is about expression, intense feelings, experiences, chaos, madness,profundity, richness, blood, love. I would use the same words to describe motherhood. If not oppressed by patriarchal schemes radicated in people’s brain, a woman should be able to find full empowerment during this time as a human and as an artist.
Starting from this awareness then we can try to create more infrastructures that facilitate a woman in pursuing her career while nurturing her practice as a mother.
Our partners and supporters:
Arts Council England, Royal College of Art, Mayor of London, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Women’s Art Library at Goldsmiths University of London, King’s College London, Zabludowicz Collection, IKLECTIK, Mimosa House, Create London, AWITA, LADA Live Art Development Agency, Elephant West, The Showroom, Elephant Magazine, Create London, Colart, Richard Saltoun
Useful contacts
General enquiries:
info@procreateproject.com
Mother Art Prize:
artprize@procreateproject.com
Enquiries about events and public programme:
events@procreateproject.com
To be fuatured on our online shop:
shop@procreateproject.com
Follow us on social media
Facebook – Instagram @procreateproject
Twitter: @procreateproj
M.A.M.A. Issue n.40: Anna Perach and Jane Yolen
Procreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 40th edition of this scholarly discourse intersects with the artistic to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital, and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work, and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA #artandmotherhood
Feb 2020: Art by Anna Perach Words by Jane Yolen
Art by Anna Perach: Wearable Sculptures
Anna’s practice is informed by the dynamic between personal and cultural myths. She explores how our private narratives are deeply rooted in ancient storytelling and folklore and conversely how folklore has the ability to tell us intimate, confidential stories about ourselves. In her work She synthesises female mythic characters and retell their stories while placing them in the current climate. By doing so Anna creates an experience of eeriness, evoking a sense of both familiarity and distress.
Anna’s main medium of work is wearable sculpture and performance. She works in a technique called tufting, making hand-made carpet textile which she transforms into wearable sculptures. The sculpture functions as both a garment that is performed in as well as an independent sculpture. Through this choice of medium Anna is interested in exploring how elements associated with the domestic sphere operate as an extension of the self and reflect on one’s heritage and gender role. Her performances reverse this dynamic and exhibit the private domestic carpet as an external masquerade both exposing and hiding fragments of the self.
1. Alkonost, tufted yarn and hand embroidery, 80x130cm, 2019 2. Preety Lady (Kim), 190x80cm, Tufted yarn, beeds, metal and wood, 2020 3. Baba Yaga, machine tufted mask (portrait) 90x170cm, 2018 4.The Drunken Bride, tufted yarn & metal frame, 43x200cm, 2019
Words by Jane Yolen
Scars
I saw my mother undressed once.
There were ribbed scars on her back.
I rubbed my point finger
lightly over one of the ridges.
She shuddered at my touch.
I asked her if it hurt.
She said it was a reminder,
her voice almost cooing.
I was too young to understand.
Years later when they took my wings,
before I could even stretch them,
before the air had foiled around them,
I remembered that day. My daughter
and her daughters will never go
under that particular knife.
I will keep them safe, hidden
till the wind can lift them.
There is so much sky.
More About Jane
Jane Yolen will have published over 376 books by the end of 2018. She has worked in almost every genre possible. Her books include several NY Times bestselling children’s picture books, prize-winning short stories, and poems. Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates. She was the first writer to win the New England Public Radio’s Arts & Humanities award. She’s mother of three (all in the book business) and grandmother of six.
“Scars” by Jane Yolen was previously published in Mom Egg Review Vol. 17, 2019.
Oxytocin Mothering the World 2020 Call for Performances
Procreate Project is looking for new works to stage on the occasion of Oxytocin Mothering the World in May/June 2020 [Dates TBC].
Call for performance and live art responding to ‘Inclusive Mothering’, looking at gender, race, bodies, disabilities and sexualities. We would like to receive proposals for performance and live art artists who self identify as women, non-binary or Trans and have caring responsibilities.
Oxytocin is about mothers and carers. It creates a platform for critical art practices, intersectional feminist theories and maternity services.
Spread over 3 days, the event sees the staging of performances distributed across different vanues, discussion panels and group workshops. The Oxytocin 2020 curatorial approach will look to unpick urgent issues, still hardly discussed and represented in public contexts.
The aim is to create a Community-driven project to evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of an inclusive maternity care service as well as providing a platform to showcase the work of artists whose artistic practices and personal experiences are underrepresented and undersupported.
We are seeking for contributions that address and explore ‘Inclusive Mothering’ practises and reproductive justice.
Oxytocin Mothering the World 2020 is curated by Dyana Gravina, Procreate Project creative director, and Laura Godfrey Isaacs artist and midwife.
Deadline to apply is the 1st of February 2020 and we will do our best to send feedback to all the artists by the end of March 2020. Thank you in advance!
* Submissions are FREE. Subject to funding, every selected artist will be paid a performance fee.
* We accept submissions from artists based outside the UK, however we cannot guarantee that travel expenses can be covered.
* Childcare is provided for the lenght of the performance. If you have childcare requirements please specify this in your proposal
More information about the event and past programme can be found at www.oxytocinbirthingtheworld.co.uk
Here is the form to apply
Oxytocin Mothering the World March 2019 – King’s College London Guys Campus
More information are available here
