Mother Motif
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Dates2020 - 2020
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Author
- Location Crete, Greece
What is a mother’s love for her daughter, but all the acts of kindness that, hopefully, will become learned behaviors and eventually evolve into fluid patterns?
Mother Motif
What is a mother's love for her daughter, but all the acts of kindness, which hopefully will become learned behaviors and eventually evolve into fluid patterns? This process creates a common space for generations of women to share practices and forge families. Through their childhood, layers and layers of maternal devotion cover them like a fabric they will carry for the rest of their lives, a cloak of identity.
Panos: I met my parents-in-law many years ago. They were both kind-hearted. Soon I became aware of the special connection that my wife had with her mother. By discreetly observing their relationship, I better understood my wife.
Mary: I was raised by a gentle father but fragile at the same time and a strong-minded mother who thinks the world of me. Trying to keep the best out of both, not always successfully, I am struggling to dance my own dance, disrupting the mother motif.
Three elements form the backbone of the project: These are the evolving patterns, the plastic flowers, and the fabrics. The changing patterns represent the learned behavior, which passes from one generation to the next. The flowers are related to mother's fascination for them as ornamental elements. The fabrics relate to a subtle yet meaningful story of affection and dedication.
Project details: This project consists of photos that were made during the first lockdown in Greece due to COVID-19. The patterns we used were made from the mother's drawings that we found in her old sketchbook from the time she was a student. An essential part of “Mother Motif” is the handmade fine art, double-sided, accordion book that marks the conclusion of this project. All design, printing, and binding were done by ourselves, with the same affection that Mary’s mother raised her daughter.
Vimeo links:
Panos Charalampidis + Mary Chairetaki
