‘50 things my son doesn’t need me for’ (2011) explores the changing relationship between the artist and her son, and speaks about issues of loss. The artist’s interest is with the details and familiarity of everyday events. She focuses on unremarkable maternal experiences of daily life that relate to a particular time but which articulate both the extraordinary and the momentous, and represent the more fundamental changes that will inevitably occur as her son grows older. In the video, the artist is seen writing on a blackboard, and then erasing, 50 things that her son no longer needs her for. The video draws on the temporary nature of the items on the list; how quickly those things disappear. The artist focuses on the notion of loss as experienced from the mother’s perspective. The work explores feelings of maternal ambivalence, trapped in monotony, and the inherent contradictions with positive memories of closeness with her son.
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Ellen McMahon’s quote encapsulates a central part of my maternal experience, which has in turn, informed my artistic practice. Conveying my maternal subjectivity, while simultaneously striving to articulate universal messages about relationships between mothers and children, my work has been governed by issues of aging, change, loss and separation.
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50 things my son doesn’t need me for #1.
Dominated by the fragility of time passing, my concerns (over the past ten years) have centred on the changing relationship between us, and in particular the ordinary yet intimate moments that we share. These seemingly minor events gradually became more significant to me. Speaking of a particular time, they communicate something more extraordinary and momentous, and symbolize the more fundamental changes that will inevitably occur as he grows older. As mementos of growth and change, quotidian events represent the poignancy of a weakening bond and my resulting feelings of loss and separation.
Prompted by the unexpected absence of peas that I had previously and regularly been picking up from the floor, and the subsequent realisation that this absence symbolised an end to a particular stage of our relationship, I began to note and record other things for which I was no longer needed.
Melancholy enveloped me with the near daily (and actual) documentation of these relentless changes on an ever-expanding list. Momentum gathered while a rhythm developed, and this document began to reflect the disordered and complicated nature of a small child’s everyday life.
The list subsequently formed the basis for this extended video work in which I am seen laboriously chalking on a blackboard, and then erasing one-by-one, each of the 50 things my son doesn’t need me for.
The work is filmed from my perspective as the list’s author, and as the artist and mother, and the video is viewed through my eyes. The intentionally close-cropped and restricted space of the frame aims to create a sense of intimacy, and references the constant surveillance of a mother’s gaze (Figure
50 things my son doesn’t need me for #2.
Maintaining a personal narrative while speaking more widely of universal concerns, the video records my hands as they inscribe each word, acting as visible signifiers; a tangible yet unidentifiable distillation of the mother. Artist and film-maker Catherine Elwes’s video, ‘
After meticulously and purposefully drawing each phrase, one by one, the words are erased, and the chalk dust accumulates (Figure
50 things my son doesn’t need me for #3.
In her book,
From my perspective, my son was getting older; and the video notably highlights the bittersweet transition between dependence and independence. Liss (
Reflecting on the characteristic features of the films created by director and artist Chantal Akerman, and in particular her focus on day-to-day routines, she succeeds in presenting both a clear and real narrative. This, together with the weight she places on time and duration, has influenced the way I approached the making of
Contextually, the content and subject of the work is
The items on the list are significant and important emotionally, and reveal our life in minute detail; a candid portrayal of our shared experiences, routines and rituals, overlaid with my subjective experience as his mother. Although seemingly general and applicable to most mother/child relationships, the list documents specific and distinctive aspects of my son’s life, and consequently the film can be read autobiographically as an account of a young child.
In the final shot (Figure
50 things my son doesn’t need me for #4.
This work is the foundation of an on-going body of work, and has underpinned a series of pieces using video, photography and text to explore the impermanence of the phases of my maternal relationship, and the irreversibility of change.
The author has no competing interests to declare.