Grammy's Praying For Me

Project Description:

Grammy's Praying For Me

If a home is where we become. What happens when we don’t fit?

With a family that represents something I could never become, I search for an image of what family can look like outside of the binary.

My research starts with the objects, photographs, writings, fabrics, and artworks that are left from my childhood. I draw parallels between what is found and what is remembered in order to better understand my own relationship with gender and sexuality. By knowing what I was shown I can make sense of my inner child. A baby raised a girl, who never grew up to become a woman. I begin to understand what didn't fit right.

What didn't fit right was woman.

What didn't fit right was straightness.

So I chose my own family. And I know now that there is room for both what I was given and what I have chosen.

Artist Statement:

My name is Maddie Swainhart and my upbringing in a heteronormative, nuclear, Southern American household provided an extremely limited view of what my future could look like.

For young Maddie, who had so much care to give, but couldn’t see any caring characters who looked liked them.

You are my muse.

My practice revolves around research and construction. I research the archetypes of the Mother, the Nuclear Family, and what nurturing looks like, while constructing a queered image of those. I wonder what family could look like outside the binary, considering the question ‘Can we all mother?’

The tension between found footage and performance highlights the gaps between my utopian understanding of motherhood and the Mother figure you saw growing up. My use of self portraiture allows me to shift between fantasy and reality and emphasize the expectation of gender roles within domesticity, while giving you your own playground of The Home.

© Madeline Swainhart - Family Portrait A queered image of the traditional family portrait.
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Family Portrait A queered image of the traditional family portrait.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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Butch Parenthood A queered image of the traditional family portrait. Looking specifically at new representations of domestic masculinity.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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Blue Bois Looking at representations of masculinity within the home and within domestic/ nurturing family portraits. With the use of a more environmental portrait technique. Bringing the viewer into the space of The Home. Reimagining families and who they are made up of. Self-portraiture allows me to explore my own gender identity. Helping me to imagine my future as a non-binary parent.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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On Domesticity Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "I spoke to mom the other day. She asked me to choose between two curtain colors for the condo. I told her I don’t have a preference. She said that made sense because in her words I am just not domestic like her."

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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On Weddings Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "I always imagined I would have a wedding. Once I had come to terms with being queer I imagined that my wedding would look something like Me in a white dress, and my partner (a woman) in a suit. I thought I needed to play the female role. That my queer relationship needed to replicate a hetero one."

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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Fourth Grade Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "In Fourth grade, we were meant to be sitting in a circle, criss-cross applesauce; I sat on my knees so no one could see my leg hair."

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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Rejoice Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "Mrs. Julie sat us down in dance class and told us we need to trim our pubes. A few years later, when I graduated from High School, she gifted me a bible."

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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Ellie's Arrival Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "I will never forget my mom saying that she has never seen a kid as happy as I was when Ellie first came home from the hospital. Can't stop thinking about my mom saying I am not domestic."

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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On Eating Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "My mom taught my sister and me to weigh ourselves at the grocery store each week. My mom always tells me I should show off my waist. It makes it really hard to figure out what is my eating disorder and what is dysphoria."

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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On Masturbation Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "I have always felt guilty about masturbating. Sometimes even sad. I can’t tell if it’s growing up in a world that suppresses female sexuality, or whether I don’t feel comfortable with my genitalia."

© Madeline Swainhart - Grammy's Praying For Me Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "Grammy's Praying For Me"
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Grammy's Praying For Me Framed archival images + Personal text in custom made passepartouts. "Grammy's Praying For Me"

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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Mother, May I (ask you) (Title Page) 9 minute video Mother, May I (ask you) is A video work which acts as the third element of my project Grammy's Praying For Me. The video is directed towards my mother, asking her questions on my upbringing. Using a selection from my family home videos — I look closely at how my parents documented us, and how they raised us. Mom, these are the things I wish I could ask you.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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"Did you always know you wanted to marry a man?" Mother, May I (ask you) is A video work which acts as the third element of my project Grammy's Praying For Me. The video is directed towards my mother, asking her questions on my upbringing. Using a selection from my family home videos — I look closely at how my parents documented us, and how they raised us. Mom, these are the things I wish I could ask you.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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"Was I everything you thought a daughter would be?" Mother, May I (ask you) is A video work which acts as the third element of my project Grammy's Praying For Me. The video is directed towards my mother, asking her questions on my upbringing. Using a selection from my family home videos — I look closely at how my parents documented us, and how they raised us. Mom, these are the things I wish I could ask you.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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"Do we celebrate you on our birthdays?" Mother, May I (ask you) is A video work which acts as the third element of my project Grammy's Praying For Me. The video is directed towards my mother, asking her questions on my upbringing. Using a selection from my family home videos — I look closely at how my parents documented us, and how they raised us. Mom, these are the things I wish I could ask you.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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"Will you feel sad if my babies aren't biologically mine?" Mother, May I (ask you) is A video work which acts as the third element of my project Grammy's Praying For Me. The video is directed towards my mother, asking her questions on my upbringing. Using a selection from my family home videos — I look closely at how my parents documented us, and how they raised us. Mom, these are the things I wish I could ask you.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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"Did you ever wish you had done something else? Mother, May I (ask you) is A video work which acts as the third element of my project Grammy's Praying For Me. The video is directed towards my mother, asking her questions on my upbringing. Using a selection from my family home videos — I look closely at how my parents documented us, and how they raised us. Mom, these are the things I wish I could ask you.

© Madeline Swainhart - Image from the Grammy's Praying For Me photography project
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a film by Maddie Swainhart (Credits Page) Mother, May I (ask you) is A video work which acts as the third element of my project Grammy's Praying For Me. The video is directed towards my mother, asking her questions on my upbringing. Using a selection from my family home videos — I look closely at how my parents documented us, and how they raised us. Mom, these are the things I wish I could ask you.

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