Listen with Mother?
Listen with Mother? broadcasts situated voices from architecture, artistic and domestic practices that explore relationships between human and more-than-human kin through the expanded concept of the ‘mother’.
This evolving installation centres around a SCOBY* mother, brought from Newcastle University’s Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment, that will grow on a kitchen table situated in the gallery over the duration of the exhibition. Around this table, researchers from HBBE, artists, architects and other makers will be invited to share how they are working with non-human organisms, as a way to explore diverse perspectives on more-than-human care, kinship, control, nurture and culture from the lab, the gallery and the home.
From 27 to 29 Sept 2023, Birthing the Mother, our latest incarnation of Listen with Mother? will be part of RawCookedRotten at Malta Society of the Arts in Palazzo de la Salle, Valetta, Malta. The exhibition borrows the terms "raw," "cooked," and "rotten" and the concept of the culinary triangle introduced by Lévi-Strauss, to highlight the interplay between nature and culture, the transformative power of cooking, and the importance of food safety and preservation. It explores the complexity of relationships, taboos, rituals, and symbolic interpretations regarding eating and being eaten, such as the spiritual or transformative aspects of consumption, reflecting their values, beliefs, and social structures.
From 9 July to 23 Sept 2022, Listen with Mother? will be part of Habit, Ability! at The NewBridge Project on Stoddart Street in Shieldfield, alongside HBBE commissioned artist, Michele Allen and other works that assess NewBridge and the environmental impact of the organisation on its surrounding spaces and at large. The exhibition explores how we might continue to inhabit a damaged planet and the ways we learn collectively from nature’s methods of survival and transformation. Habit, Ability! begins by looking at Intertidal mud flats, peat bogs, the arctic circle, and the ocean. For humans, encountering these landscapes is challenging. Some of these places are protected by legislation – prohibiting or limiting human access for their preservation, or they are protected areas of scientific study. The exhibition then turns to look at NewBridge and its new home in Shieldfield, Newcastle, having moved in 2021.
From 6 May to 23 July 2022 , the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment (HBBE) are bringing Listen with Mother? to the Farrell Centre exhibition, ‘How We Live Now’ at Newcastle Contemporary Art (NCA) on High Bridge in the centre of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. ‘How We Live Now’ is a retrospective of the work of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative from the 1980s. The installation showcases approaches to design that aim to empower groups often excluded in the design of buildings. At Newcastle Contemporary Art, the Matrix installation becomes a jumping off point for a display of contemporary projects from the North East of England which engage with the spatial implications of questions around gender, accessibility, equality, and discrimination.
*Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast
See Events
This evolving installation centres around a SCOBY* mother, brought from Newcastle University’s Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment, that will grow on a kitchen table situated in the gallery over the duration of the exhibition. Around this table, researchers from HBBE, artists, architects and other makers will be invited to share how they are working with non-human organisms, as a way to explore diverse perspectives on more-than-human care, kinship, control, nurture and culture from the lab, the gallery and the home.
From 27 to 29 Sept 2023, Birthing the Mother, our latest incarnation of Listen with Mother? will be part of RawCookedRotten at Malta Society of the Arts in Palazzo de la Salle, Valetta, Malta. The exhibition borrows the terms "raw," "cooked," and "rotten" and the concept of the culinary triangle introduced by Lévi-Strauss, to highlight the interplay between nature and culture, the transformative power of cooking, and the importance of food safety and preservation. It explores the complexity of relationships, taboos, rituals, and symbolic interpretations regarding eating and being eaten, such as the spiritual or transformative aspects of consumption, reflecting their values, beliefs, and social structures.
From 9 July to 23 Sept 2022, Listen with Mother? will be part of Habit, Ability! at The NewBridge Project on Stoddart Street in Shieldfield, alongside HBBE commissioned artist, Michele Allen and other works that assess NewBridge and the environmental impact of the organisation on its surrounding spaces and at large. The exhibition explores how we might continue to inhabit a damaged planet and the ways we learn collectively from nature’s methods of survival and transformation. Habit, Ability! begins by looking at Intertidal mud flats, peat bogs, the arctic circle, and the ocean. For humans, encountering these landscapes is challenging. Some of these places are protected by legislation – prohibiting or limiting human access for their preservation, or they are protected areas of scientific study. The exhibition then turns to look at NewBridge and its new home in Shieldfield, Newcastle, having moved in 2021.
From 6 May to 23 July 2022 , the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment (HBBE) are bringing Listen with Mother? to the Farrell Centre exhibition, ‘How We Live Now’ at Newcastle Contemporary Art (NCA) on High Bridge in the centre of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. ‘How We Live Now’ is a retrospective of the work of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative from the 1980s. The installation showcases approaches to design that aim to empower groups often excluded in the design of buildings. At Newcastle Contemporary Art, the Matrix installation becomes a jumping off point for a display of contemporary projects from the North East of England which engage with the spatial implications of questions around gender, accessibility, equality, and discrimination.
*Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast
See Events
Download Care Instructions for your 'mother'
Listen with Mother?
Mackenzie, Modi and Morrow, 2022
Formica, Wood, Glass, SCOBY*, Audio
Installation supported by Oliver Perry, Jonathan Fortescue and Robyn Hare
Mackenzie, Modi and Morrow, 2022
Formica, Wood, Glass, SCOBY*, Audio
Installation supported by Oliver Perry, Jonathan Fortescue and Robyn Hare
The evolving microbial life in the gallery is mirrored by evolving stories, collected over the course of the exhibition and broadcast as audio directly beneath the ‘mother’, entangling cultures of bacteria, yeast and human in the situated context of the exhibition. These stories are part of ongoing research into our relationships between humans and across species boundaries.
By inviting gallery visitors to share their own stories, we will explore our relationships and attitudes towards bio-materials that are simultaneously objects cultivated for human pleasure and living organisms upon which we impose regimes of care and control. Through challenging the concept of ‘motherhood’, we seek diverse responses that enable reflection upon our responsibility towards planetary resources.
‘Listen with Mother?’ is a collaboration between Dr. Louise Mackenzie, Kaajal Modi and Professor Ruth Morrow, researchers within the Responsible Interactions research group at the HBBE. It is a part of the BioDwelling project, which explores our relationships with living materials in the context of the home.
By inviting gallery visitors to share their own stories, we will explore our relationships and attitudes towards bio-materials that are simultaneously objects cultivated for human pleasure and living organisms upon which we impose regimes of care and control. Through challenging the concept of ‘motherhood’, we seek diverse responses that enable reflection upon our responsibility towards planetary resources.
‘Listen with Mother?’ is a collaboration between Dr. Louise Mackenzie, Kaajal Modi and Professor Ruth Morrow, researchers within the Responsible Interactions research group at the HBBE. It is a part of the BioDwelling project, which explores our relationships with living materials in the context of the home.
Grow your own microbial mother
Alongside more-than-human conversations, ‘Listen with Mother?’ invites gallery visitors to join in growing their own ‘mother’ (see events below). Visitors can share tea and take home their own microbial ‘children’, learning to grow, monitor and care for these as they become a new generation of ‘mothers’.
During workshops throughout the exhibition, researcher and fermentation designer Kaajal Modi will share how to harvest and create new objects from the microbial ‘mother’. Visitors will be invited to reflect on these as practices of intercultural symbiosis and intergenerational care, and to share their own stories on how they relate to their ‘mother’.
Alongside more-than-human conversations, ‘Listen with Mother?’ invites gallery visitors to join in growing their own ‘mother’ (see events below). Visitors can share tea and take home their own microbial ‘children’, learning to grow, monitor and care for these as they become a new generation of ‘mothers’.
During workshops throughout the exhibition, researcher and fermentation designer Kaajal Modi will share how to harvest and create new objects from the microbial ‘mother’. Visitors will be invited to reflect on these as practices of intercultural symbiosis and intergenerational care, and to share their own stories on how they relate to their ‘mother’.
How do you relate to your ‘Mother’?
Interpret this in whatever way you want to, and share your story with us.
We want to build a picture of relationships between humans and across species boundaries, so who or what you choose to describe as ‘mother’ we will leave up to you. You might wish to describe your relationship to the kombucha mother we have shared with you, or you might wish to tell us about your relationship to another type of ‘mother’ (noun, verb, human or non-human).
Record your story with us at our table (see events below) or contact us at biodwelling@newcastle.ac.uk to receive instructions on how to make a voice recording for inclusion in the Listen with Mother? installation.
Interpret this in whatever way you want to, and share your story with us.
We want to build a picture of relationships between humans and across species boundaries, so who or what you choose to describe as ‘mother’ we will leave up to you. You might wish to describe your relationship to the kombucha mother we have shared with you, or you might wish to tell us about your relationship to another type of ‘mother’ (noun, verb, human or non-human).
Record your story with us at our table (see events below) or contact us at biodwelling@newcastle.ac.uk to receive instructions on how to make a voice recording for inclusion in the Listen with Mother? installation.
Listen with Mother?
Events
6pm– 9pm: Thursday 5th May 2022
Tea with mother
Join us for the exhibition preview, where gallery visitors will share delicious sweetened green tea with our microbial ‘mother’. The opening night will create a microbial environment unique to the cultural context of this exhibition, in which the mother (our first generation) will gestate surrogate microbial children for the duration of the exhibition.
5pm– 9pm: Saturday 14th May 2022
9 days later | 2nd Generation
Gallery visitors are invited to join us for tea and take home a new generation of microbial ‘mothers’. You will receive guidance on how to nourish it through a practice of care, monitoring and control to ensure ‘she/he/it’ can thrive. See SCOBY Stories below.
11am–12pm: Tuesday 24th May 2022
10 days later | 3rd Generation
Gallery visitors are again invited to join us for tea, and to take home a next generation microbial ‘mother’ that they can care for at home. See SCOBY Stories below.
The maturation period varies in each household. Resources on how to care for your mother, harvest it once it is mature or share it will be updated on this page, but if you have any questions please email biodwelling@newcastle.ac.uk
We apologise that the event on Thursday 23rd June is now cancelled due to events out of our control.
12-3pm: Saturday 9 July 2022 at The NewBridge Project
Birthing the Mother
We are bringing our now grown gallery 'mother' to NewBridge where we will 'birth' her to share with a new generation of BioDwellers.
By Appointment
(contact @Bio_Dwelling or biodwelling@newcastle.ac.uk)
SCOBY* STORIES
Inter-Species-Generations
If you have been growing your own mother at home, you are invited to return to the gallery to share your SCOBY stories, experiments and explorations with us and with each other.
Kitchen Table Conversations
A series of discussions featuring HBBE researchers talking about their own relationship to their mothers and other relationships in the lab/workshop/home.
Events
6pm– 9pm: Thursday 5th May 2022
Tea with mother
Join us for the exhibition preview, where gallery visitors will share delicious sweetened green tea with our microbial ‘mother’. The opening night will create a microbial environment unique to the cultural context of this exhibition, in which the mother (our first generation) will gestate surrogate microbial children for the duration of the exhibition.
5pm– 9pm: Saturday 14th May 2022
9 days later | 2nd Generation
Gallery visitors are invited to join us for tea and take home a new generation of microbial ‘mothers’. You will receive guidance on how to nourish it through a practice of care, monitoring and control to ensure ‘she/he/it’ can thrive. See SCOBY Stories below.
11am–12pm: Tuesday 24th May 2022
10 days later | 3rd Generation
Gallery visitors are again invited to join us for tea, and to take home a next generation microbial ‘mother’ that they can care for at home. See SCOBY Stories below.
The maturation period varies in each household. Resources on how to care for your mother, harvest it once it is mature or share it will be updated on this page, but if you have any questions please email biodwelling@newcastle.ac.uk
We apologise that the event on Thursday 23rd June is now cancelled due to events out of our control.
12-3pm: Saturday 9 July 2022 at The NewBridge Project
Birthing the Mother
We are bringing our now grown gallery 'mother' to NewBridge where we will 'birth' her to share with a new generation of BioDwellers.
By Appointment
(contact @Bio_Dwelling or biodwelling@newcastle.ac.uk)
SCOBY* STORIES
Inter-Species-Generations
If you have been growing your own mother at home, you are invited to return to the gallery to share your SCOBY stories, experiments and explorations with us and with each other.
Kitchen Table Conversations
A series of discussions featuring HBBE researchers talking about their own relationship to their mothers and other relationships in the lab/workshop/home.
