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
Mother Art Prize 2018 - Winner and art show shortlisted artists
We are thrilled to announce that Candida Powell-Williams is the winner of the Mother Art Prize 2018
Congratulations to the 20 artists who have been shortlisted. The show will be hosted at Mimosa House, 2-18 May 2019. Save the Date!
Laura Buckley
Tereza Buskova
Leah Carless
Hannah Cooke
Gaia Fugazza
Casey Jenkins
Wednesday Kim
Wanja Kimani
Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor
Natalie Lennard
Elin Mack
Stiliyana Minkovska
Vanessa Mitter
Bara Palcik
Anna Perach
Candida Powell-Williams
Clare Price
Michele Selway
Lucy Tomlins
Kate Walters
More about the Winner
Candida Powell-Williams graduated from the Royal College of Art, London in 2011 and the Slade School of Fine Art London in 2009. Her sculptural and performance works are a response to researching the slippage that occurs between primary and secondary source material, exploring the consequences of retelling history and how we construct identity through objects and memory. She is currently Artist in Residence at The Warburg Institute London. Selected exhibitions include: Lessness, still quorum, performance, Serpentine Galleries, London (2018); Boredom and its Acid Touch, Frieze Live, London (2017); Tongue Town, Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo (2017); Cache, Art Night Associate Programme, London (2017); Vernacular History of the Golden Rhubarb, Bosse and Baum Gallery, London (2017); PIC performance festival, Melbourne, Australia (2016); Coade’s Elixir-an occupation, Hayward Gallery, London (2014). In 2013 Powell-Williams was awarded the Sainsbury Scholarship at the British School at Rome.
About the Fountain of Tongues piece:
In this work a wobbly fountain pumps water around a pinecone made of tongues conjuring an atmosphere which crosses the Romantic poets with the drama of the Baroque. Pinecones are a prevalent classical decorative ornamentation and have been used to symbolise enlightenment, spirituality, the third eye and Pineal Gland, whilst tongues are a site for pleasure and communication emphasising a bodily experience. In Rome there are over 2000 fountains. The Romans were experts at moving water around which meant they could provide it for crucial trades from mines and farm to mills and also for their gardens. As well as the famous and busy fountains such as the Trevi there are hundreds of drinking fountains tucked away in quiet squares where all you can hear is the trickling sound of water and these often a social meeting point. Each of these potential references have a purpose in the complex web Powell-Williams creates in her practice in which she cross references history, symbols and even her own work, disorientating the viewer with familiar yet unfamiliar objects. This fountain was originally part of a larger immersive installation of sculpture, performance and moving image exploring the fetishism of anthropological objects. The project combined an interest in tourist behaviors such as rubbing statues with a catalogue of bizarre stories about these artefacts gathered from historians and archaeologists whilst at the British School at Rome. It seeked to capture the sense of spectacle found in exploring historical sites and their dramatization to contemporary visitors.
The judging panel was composed by:
– Beth Colocci, trustee of the UK Friends of the National Museum for Women in the Arts
– Sylvie Gormezano– Director at Picture this productions and Chair of the Association of Women Art Dealers (AWAD)
– Marcelle Joseph, Director and Curator at Marcelle Joseph Project
– Sigrid Kirk, Co-founder of ARTimbarc and AWITA ( Association of Women in the Arts)
–Elizabeth Neilson, Director at the Zabludowicz Collection
– Laura Smith, Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery
Procreate Project online shop launch
The world’s first online shop championing and promoting artists who are mothers
The Procreate Project online shop is launching today 4th of July. The new platform is dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of original artworks, prints and publications made by contemporary artists who are mothers.
If, like artist Marina Abramovic says, ‘children hold the female artists back’, we then want to change the paradigm.
We don’t often talk openly about the hierarchy of values that capitalism fosters. Data suggests that gender imbalances in the arts persist at, and beyond, the mid-career stage. Women keep voicing concerns about attitudes towards female artists, the lack of support for childcare and maternity leave, and the obstacles that confront women, particularly during the mid-career stage. It’s demonstrated that mothers have to face bigger challenges due to lack of infrastructures designed to meet their family needs, in order to nourish and develop their practice.
To further ensure professional development of contemporary artists with caring responsibilities, the Procreate Project online shop will promote and sell original artworks including paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings, illustration and prints. The shop will also include hard-to-find publications related to the themes of motherhood, womanhood and feminism.
The new Procreate Project platform champions a rich mix of exciting emerging artists across disciplines. To name few: American fiber artist Michele Landel, who has produced three new exclusive works, inspired by the #Me Too movement campaign, examining the question “can you separate art from the artist?”; Italian born multidisciplinary Gaia Fugazza, recently selected for the Baltic Triennal, who has produced unique painted silk scarves; Edinburgh based Mella Shaw, who is selling pieces from her large scale installation HARVEST, focused on environmental issues, showcased in 2018 at Saatchi Gallery; London based visual artist and designer Sophia Marinkov Jones, whose strong works deal with birth and mother and child relationship. [please see the full artists list below]
“We aim to be as inclusive as we can, while keeping our curatorial vision strong with unique, playful and thought-provoking works. With our experience and network of buyers and collectors, we aim to raise the organisation’s profile and consequently create real opportunities, visibility and sustainability for the artists involved” (Paola Lucente, Procreate Project Director and Curator)
In a climate where only 30% of artists represented by commercial galleries are women, and as little as 3–5% of major permanent collections in the U.S. and Europe, Procreate Project is a pioneering social enterprise dedicated to the development of contemporary artists at this crucial stage of their personal and professional
Procreate Project is an art organisation working towards equal representation for [self-identifying] women, working in the arts and creative industries. Procreate Project creates the prime conditions for the production of works that would not otherwise be created, by conceiving new models and platforms that facilitate the progression of a solid artistic development and increased visibility.
“Through art we want to challenge and shed light on stereotypes and assumptions for which women cannot pursue their creative goals when raising small children ” (Dyana Gravina, Procreate Project founder and Creative Director)
Featured Artists
Camille Aubry, Jessica Blandford, Odette Farrell, Gaia Fugazza, Jane Glennie, Martina Hynan, Sophia Jones, Wednesday Kim, Helen Knowles, Vaiva Kovieraite-Trumpe, Michele Landel, Kate Lyddon, Rajaa Paixão, Jemimah Patterson, Roberta Pederzoli from Quintessenza, Leyli Salayeva, Saskia Saunders, Mella Shaw, Jessica Timmis, Leticia Valverdes, Dawn Yow
