Mãelhação: women-artists-mothers-academics-etc and the arts system

Abstract

Considering the debate about women-artists and women-artists-mothers in the arts system and the recent insertion of the topic ‘motherhood’ in the academic universe, the essay proposes to contribute to the questions about the conditions of artistic and theoretical production and its forms of legitimation based on this topic. From the force of creation (here, in its literal derivation) to addressing the artistic-theoretical creation of the subjects (re)producers of art, what does the word ‘artists’ mean when coupled with women-mothers-artists and women-mothers-artistsacademics-etc. generates, today? In this context, the historical questions raised by feminist studies are guides for the (self)validation of other forms of creation, also theoretical, in the association feminisms-art-maternities-academy in a perspective that situates points of view from Brazil under the regency plural of precarizations. However, the ‘motherhood’ that invades the academy shows, simultaneously, the glaring absences of the lack of conditions for creation in the unequal division of time and production conditions also among women. And so the question remains open: ‘Who is not here’?