My current project-based series is entitled A Bringing Forth, derived from the Latin root of the term post-partum. In this work I respond directly to my experience of parenthood through naturalistic observation as I record, and document the care of my infant daughter. The work is enabled by and exists within the context of motherhood. In the struggle to reconcile the notion of parenting to my practice, I decided that is was the nature of the practice that needed to adapt, not the nature of parenthood.
I have established mechanisms to capture the physical actions of parenting as a mark on a page. For instance, the area rugs in our home create transfer drawings as we walk across them, the glider rocker creates drawings as we rock, and the stroller creates drawings as we stroll. These works are ongoing, and are enabled by the activities of our daily lives, capturing the kinetic energy and labor involved in the care and nurturing of an infant.
As a whole, this project-based work is a personal narrative taking form as poetic visual data collected through self-anthropology.
The Measurement Project
Each day of pregnancy, Sarah measured her stomach at navel height with a piece of yarn. The Measurement Project is the accumulation of this daily ritual.
Fingernail Series
This series was created using her right thumbnail during pregnancy to emboss handmade paper. A common side effect of pregnancy is faster growing fingernails, and in her case they were significantly stronger. She used this new, temporary asset to create this series.
Baby Bottle Series
In this series, the work was created using a baby bottle instead of a paintbrush. Sarah used this process as a step in her personal reconciliation with her necessity to use formula to feed her daughter in addition to and eventually instead of breastfeeding. With the arrangement of the marks in rows reminiscent of letters, words and sentences, she also consider the acquisition of language in a developing infant.
Objects of Care Series
To make the work in the Objects of Care Series, she created digital negatives enlarging the various textures of her infant daughter’s toys, blankets and clothing that were gifted to us by their friends and family. She created cyanotypes with these negatives and re-developed them in Mother’s Milk Tea, a tea made with a set of herbs used for centuries to promote healthy lactation. The tannins in the tea create a chemical reaction with the iron of the cyanotype causing the traditional cyanotype blue to darken and additionally tone the white of the paper.
Rocking Chair Series
In this series she use the act of caring for a baby as a form of mark-making. Pieces of graphite hang from the underside of their glider rocking chair and create marks on a piece of paper attached to the stationary base. Sarah began this series when her daughter was born and anyone who has used the chair has participated in the creation of the works. This series is ongoing.
more about Sarah…
Born in 1978 in former Yugoslavia, Nuša graduated in sculpture and ceramics at Famul Stuart school of Applied Arts in Ljubljana in 2005. Also a qualified and practicing social worker, Nuša combined her twin interests in art and society in her Sociology MSc which considered the therapeutic value of postmodern ‘death art’ in 2010.
Primarily interested in performance art and installations, she draws inspiration from a wide range of sources but regardless of the form, her artistic work could be considered as some type of ‘social commentary’ as it is often inspired by people and events in her vicinity.
Nuša has been living and working in London for nearly a decade and has a small ceramics studio in her home. Most recently, she has been producing artworks with her little assistant.
