“At the beginning of her life, she did not know how old she was.... But gradually, the word punctuality, meaning exactness to the minute, comes to rule her life.... Now, everything around her is designed to save time so she can squeeze more and more into her day.... She invests in a modem, a food-processor, a CD- ROM drive, a TV remote-control, voice-mail, e-mail, fax, home-shopping service, a remote-diagnosis machine, voiceconferencing, video-on-demand, the Daily Me, home-banking, virtual education and an electronic camera.... Living so perpetually in the present, she wonders where her past and future went...”.
Kate Bush, Cottage Industry, 1995, exhibition catalogue, London: Beaconsfield.
This third session responds to one of the first exhibitions held at Beaconsfield’s current site, Cottage Industry (1995). Bringing together seven female artists, (Sonia Boyce, Kate Bush, Mikey Cuddihy, Siobhan Davies, Elsie Mitchell, Clare Palmier and Naomi Siderfin) Curated by the female member of Beaconsfield, this group show invited artists to share their experiences of navigating gendered domestic and economic constraints within the art world, looking at how invisible labour and care was often paralleled or blurred within professional settings.
Whether tackling curatorial positions alongside fine art practices, supporting children or, students, this emphasis on hosting or guidance often slips into the workload of female creatives. Held across four sites, the gallery space, the exterior walls of Beaconsfield and two private homes of the featured artists, Cottage Industry broadened the scope of how exhibition making could be conceived and received, evolving in tandem with individual artists’ capacities and needs.
30 years on, this reading group looks at how the experience of female artists has changed, reflecting on radical histories of collective action, as well as carving space for generous ways of working. How can the art world create sustainable ways of working for its female artists and how can we tackle the realities of gendered time?
Hettie Judah’s text surveys key art historical examples of art and motherhood, pulling from both canonical art history of mother and child imagery and socially engaged projects. Irmeli Kokko and Nina Möntmann’s conversation champions communal residencies which provide
necessary childcare and foster meaningful collective exchange as a fertile antidote to the fast-
paced world of contemporary art. Finally, an excerpt from Camille Henrot’s Milkways brings
a raw, first-person perspective to the challenges of being an artist-mother.
Archival materials from Cottage Industry (1995) will be on display for participants to sift through and return to after collectively reading the texts.
