the Maternal grappled with how a maternal ethics might offer new ways of thinking about the Anthropocene, a term coined by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2010 to indicate the geological impact of humans on the planet. Mapping the Maternal was an attempt to use maternal ethics-defined by philosopher Sara Ruddick as a non-violent, anti-militaristic approach based on the daily job of nurturing children and by psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger as an early language based on the threads of

more »

... hreads of connection and co-extensiveness between mother and child-to grapple with the present societal and ecological imbalance of the world today, an imbalance caused by greed, global capitalism, the exploitation of natural resources, and an ever increasing divide between the haves and the have nots, developed and undeveloped countries, the technologically literate and the technology deprived, and those with access to potable water as opposed to those without. The previous iterations of New Maternalisms in Toronto (2012, Sponsored by FADO at Mercer Union) and Chile (2014, co-curated with Soledad Novoa Donoso at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo MAC and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes MNBA) had included the work of over twenty artists, working in a variety of media from painting and photography to installation, sculpture, and video.