I’m Here

a group exhibition acknowledging mothering.

January 13-20, 2019
Opening Reception: January 13, 2019, 2-5 PM

Artists:

• Noor Abed
• Tasha Bjelić
• Kayla Ephros
• Avelardo Ibarra
• Babsi Loisch

Organized By: gloria galvez

“I’m Here” is both a statement that identifies your location to the other and demands the acknowledgement of your presence from the other. For this exhibition, both connotations of “I’m Here” are utilized to extrude acts and states of mothering, biological and non-biological (and at times even non-human), that are often unacknowledged or even suppressed. Mothering is hard work that can come from a mother, brother, friend, or doll. It requires those who mother to be intimately present for those in need of mothering. And at times, this intimate availability absorbs their full beings rendering them invisible within their mothering.

Each work in the exhibit acknowledges mothering in a variety of ways. Avelardo Ibarra’s work looks at his own relationship with his mother and the separate being she is outside of this relationship. Kayla Ephros expands mothering to a physical object like a doll, which can take the place of a mother as an object of comfort for young children. With video, Noor Abed platforms mothering through the politics of waiting, like that of her own mother in Palestine, an occupied territory. Babsi Loisch explores the challenge of her own mothering as an artist and the maneuvers it propels in order to maintain both a practice of art and mothering. Tasha Bjelić’s work refuses socially perceived notions of what those who mother should embody.
Together the artists featured in “I’m Here” acknowledge mothering – its versatility, resilience, and complexities – and with this acknowledgement, seek to make space for those who mother and all that they encompass in a world that often refuses to do so.