Baltic x MOTHEROTHER: Continuing the Conversation on Care

Tahmina Alia was born in Bangladesh and migrated to England with her family in the early Nineties. She has spent her years living in the North East of England and discovered her love of poetry in her early twenties after co-hosting a poetry event with her sister. Since then, she has gone on to perform spoken work at many events and festivals, as well as presenting her own radio show, curated events, and setting up her own spoken work night called Strictly Spoken. 

Hettie Judah is a writer and curator. Recent books include How Not To Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) (Lund Humphries,  2022), Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (John Murray, London, 2022/ Penguin, NY, 2023), and Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood was published in the UK and Europe by Thames & Hudson on 4 July 2024, and in the US and Canada on 3 September 2024. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian, Frieze and The Times Literary Supplement, and writes a monthly column for Apollo magazine. 

Hettie is curator of the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood which opened at the Arnolfini in Bristol on 9 March 2024, and is currently on show at MAC in Birmingham. 

Following publication of her 2020 study on the impact of motherhood on artists’ careers, in 2021 she worked with a group of artists to draw up the manifesto How Not To Exclude Artist Parents, now available in 16 languages. In 2022, together with Jo Harrison, Hettie co-founded the Art Working Parents Alliance - a supportive network and campaigning group for curators, academics, gallerists, technicians, educators and others working in the arts. 

Lauren McLaughlin is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and curator based in Aberdeen. Lauren graduated with BA (Hons) Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London in 2012, and MA Applied Arts & Social Practice from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh in 2021. Lauren has exhibited throughout the UK and Internationally; including recent group exhibitions at The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; Bayfront Park, Sarasota, Florida; Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and AIR Gallery, Manchester. Her work is included in the Birth Rites Collection; and she has been commissioned to write for a number of publications and platforms including We Can’t Afford to Work for Love (2024), An Artist and A Mother (2023), This is Gender (In)Equality (2023) and  Unfinished Business (2022).

Dr Martina Mullaney is a practicing artist and academic. She is the research Co-Ordinator for FilmEU European University at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin, Ireland. Formally the Irish Post Doc. Researcher for the joint funded Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK)/Irish Research Council Feminist Art Making Histories Project. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, London and AHRC-funded Ph.D. from the University of Reading. Her research asks ‘how art on and of maternity can transcend its own audience?  She convened the international Missing Mother Conference online during lockdown conditions in 2021.She is a recipient of the Red Mansion Art Prize, London, and China, she has been artist in residence with BALENCIAGA, Paris, The British Council in Sri Lanka, and Tbilisi, Georgia, The Gallery of Photography, Dublin. Her work has shown at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, Franekel Gallery, San Francisco, Artwall Gallery, Prague and Cork Film Center, Ireland. She founded Enemies of Good Art in London after the birth of her child. Events took place at; Tate Modern, the ICA, Southbank Centre and Chisenhale Gallery.Tranzit Display Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic and Galerija Nova, Zagreb in 2015. Enemies of God Art also broadcast on Resonance 104.4FM