Spanning generations and media, this landmark exhibition challenges the myths and realities of maternal experience.
Bringing together over 70 artists across periods and media, ‘Motherhood: Paradox and Duality’ explores what it means to mother—and be mothered—in a world marked by change, crisis, and contradiction. From tenderness to tenacity, the exhibition charts the full spectrum of maternal experiences in South Africa, while interrogating the cultural, social, and political forces that shape them.
Motherhood, the exhibition argues, is not a monolith. It is a paradox: intimate yet collective, idealised yet undervalued, universal yet shaped by deeply personal and political contexts. Often sentimentalised or politicised, motherhood remains one of the most profound—and contested—human experiences. The artists featured here strive to move beyond stereotypes, instead offering a layered and intersectional portrayal of mothering as it is lived, remembered, and imagined.
A central thread running through the exhibition is the intersection of caregiving and power. Through a range of works—spanning painting, photography, performance, sculpture and new media—artists explore how motherhood is shaped by race, class, gender, sexuality, and identity. From portraits of familial intimacy to sharp critiques of reproductive politics, the works challenge dominant narratives and open space for alternate, often overlooked, maternal realities.
In South Africa, the story of motherhood is inextricably linked to the nation’s history. Colonial legacies, apartheid-era displacements, the HIV crisis, and ongoing gender inequality have long disrupted traditional family structures. Against this backdrop, mothering has often taken communal, surrogate, or politically subversive forms. ‘Motherhood: Paradox and Duality’ reflects this multiplicity, presenting images of both pain and power—mourning and celebration, struggle and joy.
At the heart of the exhibition is a rethinking of caregiving as a radical act. In an era marked by precarity—economic hardship, political instability, climate collapse—mothering emerges not just as emotional labour, but as a form of resilience and resistance. Whether biological, chosen, or communal, caregiving becomes a means of survival, protest, and transformation.
Some works delve into the physical and emotional labour of care, gestures such as feeding, bathing, and holding. Others turn to myth, memory, or abstraction to evoke the maternal as a force that transcends biology. Depictions of absence, loss, and longing counterbalance scenes of pregnancy, birth, domestic life and intergenerational connection. Together, they paint a vivid picture of mothering as both deeply personal and politically charged.
Importantly, the exhibition does not seek to define motherhood, but rather to expand our understanding of it. It makes space for complexity—for the simultaneous experience of love and exhaustion, desire and fear, connection and alienation. In doing so, it resists the neat, normative ideals often imposed on mothers and those who mother.
In the 21st century, as ideas around gender, identity, family and kinship continue to evolve, ‘Motherhood: Paradox and Duality’ offers a timely and necessary reflection. It positions motherhood not as a static role, but as a dynamic, evolving experience—one that touches every aspect of society, from the personal to the political.
By presenting motherhood as both a strength and a struggle, an ideal and a battleground, the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider how we perceive care—and who gets to be seen as a caregiver. Ultimately, it calls for a more honest, inclusive, and critical conversation about what it means to mother in our world today.
The exhibition opened on April 30, 2025, and will be on view until February 23, 2026. For more information, please visit Iziko South African National Gallery.
