Ella Cooper
Ella Cooper

TWO new photo series :
IN DEVELPOMENT

mother body erasure identity

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THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THIS SERIES #ArtistStatement

When I first began this project I was from a desire to explore 'motherhood / parenthood ' from a multiracial feminist perspective. When I started this work in 2018, I was a new single mother by choice and had recently experienced the incredible beauty and challenges of this immense rite of passage. Simultaneously I was struck by the isolation, emotional labour and societal devaluing of this role. As a way of documenting this first stage of my experience I set up a camera in my living room to capture raw, vulnerable and spontaneous moments with my newborn child. As both exploration and visual journal, I was curious to see what I would uncover from the process. This process has lead me to wanting to create a new portrait series with other cis/trans people who identify with the role of mothering. While I am working with folks of all cultural backgrounds now, I am very focused on centring the bodies of queer, racialized and indigenous caregivers in the first stages of mother/parenthood. Striving to bring a voice to the sense of erasure and postpartum issues that we experience on our bodies and identities in the name of love.

I am striving to disrupt the heternormative white perspective that is so prevalent when it comes to depictions of mother / parenthood in dominant visual culture. More importantly, I have found from doing projects of this kind there is a healing that takes place when queer, Black, racialized, Indigenus and our allies come together to hold space, celebrate and witness each other. I hope this work will serve as both commentary and a celebration of the ‘mother’s’ on the margins. Where we illuminate the uniqueness of our individual experience, the realities of post partum struggles and the beauty of our alternative approaches to bringing new life into the world.

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For more information please contact me at ellacoopercreates @ gmail.com

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