And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes

An exhibition by Mother Creatrix Collective

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched. The tulips turn to me… And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me. – Excerpt from Tulips by Sylvia Plath

This exhibition, inspired by Sylvia Plath’s Tulips, features artists exploring transformation, grief, and empathy in motherhood: how we as mothers, like tulips, die off and regrow each year, tending to the tulips that will extend beyond us. Exhibiting artists explore the inextricable link between their personal identities and their children’s, or of other parents–approaches range from incorporating their children in their work to drawing inspiration from their parental experiences for community-based art and activism, considering caregiving as social practice. The exhibition also includes artistic collaborations inspired by childbirth and parenting experiences. Like Plath in Tulips, these artists incorporate specific symbols and materials from the natural or domestic world, with many embracing costume, props, and traditional or invented rituals to process different transitions, find solitude or repose, or connect with others.

In 2024, the former Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, emphasized the need for a shift in society to help combat parental isolation. Cultural stigmas surrounding pregnancy loss, reproductive choice, family structure, postpartum depression and anxiety and other realities of parenting often silence honest conversation.This exhibition acts as a response, with a space for parents and non-parents to engage in the layered realities of caregiving through themes of matrescence, grief and renewal to spark open dialogue about how we value care in our society.

Participating Artists: Shweta Bist, Alexandra Carter, Courtney Dudley, Tamar Ettun, Kim Hopson, Caroline Holder, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Jess Levey, Caroline McAuliffe, Coralina Rodriguez Meyer, Rose Nestler, Jocelyn Russel, Nina Wood. (Members of MCC) Curated by Mother Creatrix Collective Members Caroline McAuliffe, Katherine Gressel and Shweta Bist

And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council. Image credit: Caroline McAuliffe.