Myths of Mothers and Other Monsters marks the first collective exhibition by artists of M.A.R.S. – Maternal Artistic Research Studio. It emerged from a shared experience of structural tension: while motherhood* forms the foundation of every society, it is simultaneously regulated by rigid norms, moral expectations, and persistent cultural images. Within the art field in particular, motherhood* is still widely perceived as a disruption—something that conflicts with ideals of constant availability, autonomy, and uninterrupted focus.
The exhibition takes this contradiction as its point of departure. It asks which images of motherhood* are culturally dominant, which are marginalized, and what becomes visible when artistic practice is not produced despite care work, bodily transformation, and emotional ambivalence, but within them. Between the figures of the self-sacrificing mother and the stigmatized “bad mother,” the exhibition opens up a field of tension that it does not seek to resolve, but deliberately exposes.
The term “monster” invoked in the title refers to its Latin origin, monstrare—to show, to reveal. Understood in this emancipatory sense, the monster is not a deviation but a figure of disclosure: one that makes visible those experiences that lie beyond idealized narratives. Pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, postnatal bodies, exhaustion, dependency, as well as resistance, humor, and collective strength are not treated as peripheral themes, but as central points of artistic inquiry.
The participating artists—Hannah Kindler, Milena Naef, Sara-Lena Möllenkamp, and Sylvia Gaßner—approach motherhood* as a complex entanglement of bodies, relationships, social attributions, and power structures. Their works are rooted in situated knowledge: lived experience, fragmented working rhythms, shared and interrupted time. Video, installation, sculpture, drawing, photography, sound, and text intersect to form a polyphonic field that resists normative ways of seeing.
At the same time, the exhibition reflects on its own conditions of production. Developed within the framework of M.A.R.S., it emerged through a collective process that foregrounded exchange, mutual support, and visibility, while acknowledging the realities of care labor. Rather than concealing these conditions, the exhibition made them an integral part of its structure: conversations, shared working phases, and a collaboratively produced zine extended the exhibition beyond the displayed works.
Myths of Mothers and Other Monsters does not position itself as a definitive statement, but as an invitation. It addresses not only mothers*, but all those who are connected to care, whether as children, partners, friends, or members of social constellations. The exhibition opens up a space for reflection and experience in which motherhood* is not reduced, but taken seriously in all its contradictions.
The asterisk in motherhood* signals a deliberate opening of the term: moving beyond a purely biological definition toward an understanding of motherhood* as a socially, historically, and politically constructed practice.
