(ONGOING)

To become a mother or not to become a mother.

 Project in collaboration  Lena Weber

An exploration through films, photography, poetry & collages.

We are exploring the idea behind the possibility of motherhood when we identify as queer (when we do not recognize ourselves in a heterosexual / patriarchal model of the family) . Behind the project are Lena Weber, a collage artist and poet, and Solène Milcent, a photographer and videographer. We explore our doubts, our fears, our thoughts around this concept, working through the taboo. In addition to our personal experiences, we conduct interviews with other women-identified people to help deepen our understanding of what it feels like to be a queer woman considering motherhood. Initiated in summer 2020, we noticed that our conversations went through more superficial ideas about motherhood, to something more personal and linked to what we are experiencing in our lives :  family secrets suddenly revealed, trauma and its impact on the body including childhood sexual abuse, our partnership styles, health issues… 
We aim to present our work in several short films, using our own recorded conversations and poems written by Lena based on those conversations

FIRST PIECES

The piece :
This video and poem is part of our exploration questioning Motherhood. 

Dancing with the doubts and fears.The world could have been nothing. A body movement reflexion on the void, the making of a new consciousness.

This video is based on a poem written by Lena after some whats app audio we exchanged.

At ten you dreamt of infinity
dipped fingers into years to come;
felt the weight of a universe, the weight of life,
told your aunt you
couldn't
sleep.

Now you touch skin touched by one lover, two, taught with years to come, taught with self, taught with animality, you ask to rest, ask if an infant is conscious of death, ask for more years, ask if choice can be
given.

The other day you got high and
for a few seconds returned to that eternity, begged to come home.
You remembered the absence of light
remembered loss, how fine the line is between falling and flight

yes you ask for more years
you ask to be an animal
​you ask for rest
you ask if choice can be given, a gift, if you give life do you also give the pain of
death?
​

COLLAGES

THE PROCESS 

An ongoing conversation with Skype meeting
 what's app audio
​ poems and photos