Jessie Edwards-Thomas
© Jessie Edwards-Thomas
What does it mean to be a Mother today? What is the relationship between motherhood, care and labour and how is this relationship being shaped for tomorrow's world?
Out of Sight & Out of Mind is a personal reflection upon these questions as I embark on my own personal journey of motherhood. This body of work is part of a wider project exploring issues of motherhood in 21st century Britain. I am interested in how bodies fit, squeeze and mould into the industrial systems and social environments we have created. Where is the room to love and to care in realities obsessed with efficiency of straight lines and quantifiable outcomes? What happens when care is rendered redundant? Out of Sight & Out of Mind, explores the darker corners and consequences of these systems through a personal lens of motherhood.
We are living in a new time of vast industrial and technological advancements. In this show, you will find shadowy figures, fragmented and disjointed in industrial spaces of bygone times. Heavily inspired by historical 19th century stories, easily mistaken for nightmares; of baby farming, infanticide and mothers stolen away to mental asylums; the struggle to care in new alien worlds.
The very act of caring is central to our survival and being, can we afford for care to be compromised any longer?
By looking back to our histories, the work attempts to draw awareness to the importance of care, through the lens of motherhood; not something to be assumed or pathologized but central to our functioning worlds.
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Jessie Edwards-Thomas is a visual artist based in Britain. She originates from Snowdonia, North Wales. Her artistic practice explores the idea of the individual and the individual's placement within society. Themes of belonging, alienation and structural interrogation are key to her practice. Her practice utilises the what-ifs of fiction and imagination to explore themes of power, symbols, societal structures and connection through storytelling.
Her current project is an absurd exploration of ideas of womanhood, labour, care and technology today.
She has exhibited across the U.K, including the Arnolfini, Oriel Mostyn, Peckham24, Bristol Photo festival, Format festival and the Royal Academy.