Our Child

Our Child

Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, A. Mickiewicza 2, 15-222 Białystok

Artists: Karolina Balcer, Lucia Dovičáková, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Dagmar Hochová, Lenka Klodová, Eva Koťátková, Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei, Markéta Magidová, Rafał Milach / Archive of Public Protests, Tamara Moyzes and Věra Duždová Horváthová / RKP, Pražské matky,  Lucie Rosenfeldová, Kateřina Šedá, Jaśmina Wójcik

Curators: Jitka Hlaváčková, Zuzana Štefková, Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka

Our Child will explore the theme of children in personal and social relations, material practices of parenting, as well as institutional policies and wider ideological contexts. Bringing together examples of international contemporary art, the exhibition will seek to analyse how children are socialised into the matrix of our culture(s), and how these processes reflect on the experience of intersections between gender, ethnic, cultural, and other identities and social values and norms.

Using critical feminist theory, the exhibition will show how child-rearing, education and socialisation processes might reproduce oppressive power relations and stereotypes present in our society. It will also look at how art can challenge these discriminatory practices, seeking to promote just and respectful relations with the Other (including the more-than-human), acknowledging the personhood and agency of children, and envisioning ways of including children in shared processes of building and contributing to the world. Last but not least, artworks will bring forth the somewhat subversive potential of non-normative and marginalised experiences of parenting, and their translation into art practice. 

Themes explored as part of the exhibition will span the period from (before) conception to adulthood, the fact that we never cease to be our parents’ children distinctly upheld: parenthood often takes us back to the “unfinished business” of our own childhood. In this sense, Our Child will examine intergenerational relationships, and how the issue of care is articulated in connection to raising children – as well as to circumstances of adult children taking care of elderly parents. 

The exhibition will survey a wide array of subjects, ranging from reproductive rights (including abortion, contraception, and obstetric violence) to the impact of biotechnologies and genetics on parenting and childcare. Our Child will naturally focus on issues of education while exploring roles children play in diverse institutions beyond school and family. Moreover, the exhibition will address social pressures contained within the notion of raising a child, and the discriminatory dimension of social reproduction framed by gender stereotypes, economic factors, and systemic regulations and policies. Lastly, the show will investigate relations between children and artist parents, and the role of children in the context of art as an institution.

Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund 

Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Republic of Poland