smother forms part of a larger body of research by Tiffany Parbs, examining contrary frameworks used to depict women in the media, their psychological impact on individuals and pervasive influence on socialisation of attitudes towards women in the wider populace.
With this instalment, Tiffany uses jewellery to reframe the prevailing good/bad mother dichotomy, with particular emphasis on the gap between visceral realities of motherhood and the gamut of unrealistic expectations placed on women from ‘Ideal Mother’ myths pervading through Western advertising that promote happiness through procreation, autonomic nurturing perfection and unattainable standards.
smother offers an alternative reference point - one that revels and reveres in mundanity and demonstrates a heightened awareness of ongoing psychological and physical states of mothering, the involved labour and loading of parenting.
This project has been supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria’s Creators Fund, City of Melbourne Arts Grant Program and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
PANEL DISCUSSION
Wednesday 14 November, 1 pm
Join us for an open panel discussion in the gallery amidst the current exhibition “smother” at Craft.
A conversation about the intersection of feminism, making and motherhood.
How do we construct and make our ideas – whether it be jewellery, photographs, structures or words? How does the body and our politics inform this? How, indeed, is feminism crafted?
Tiffany Parbs, conceptual based jeweller
Karen Pickering, feminist presenter, writer and educator
Gemma Jones, Public Programs Manager, Craft