Societal expectations and what we expect from society, freelance employment as an in-between space of personal freedom and madness, full-time parenting… British artist Martina Mullaney, whose exhibition is taking place at Art Wall during the Fotograf Festival, will talk about her experience as an artist and a mother in an environment created by Maria Lukáčová and Martina Smutná on the INI Project’s premises.

 

The title of the talk is taken from Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex, a radical feminist manifesto in which the writer calls for a new world order. Overthrow patriarchy, install matriarchy, and the complete automation of the labour market. Where women would live in leisure time only and men would service their needs. Martina Mullaney is interested in feminism, maternity and art making, abstracted and borrowed time for the artist who is also a mother. She will look at the formation of the kitchen table aesthetic or art made ‘after dark’. She critiques neoliberalism and the professionalization of nearly all aspects of our lives. She argues that neoliberalism, for the mother, is a continued form of matricide where she is judged and measured against symbolic and social orders, expected to perform and succeed, or fail and risk obliteration. 

 

The opening of exhibition Leisure under Control by Marie Lukáčová and Martina Smutná follows after the talk.