Aware of the injustices and inequalities particularly exacerbated with lockdown and “with women bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s economic impact while continuing to perform 75% of unpaid care responsibilities”, talented Battersea Arts Centre curator Katherine Kotz decided last year to start a online solidarity project with a fundraising aim, while being actually pregnant at the time. Named The Motherhood Project, the series of short films is now available to watch online on the Battersea Arts Centre website.

Being asked to create a short film interrogating all topics related to parenthood to support Refuge via donations from ticket sales, 15 artists from all over the UK accepted the mission and the unique result is a beautiful, honest artistic anthology, which should be named a public utility one. It addresses women who want to become mothers and those who don’t, women who are expecting and new mums but also people from all genders, who are thinking about becoming a parent and all the different forms of parenthood. 

Being well-thought out as an online festival of dramatic and personal monologues, the first part is a series of short films written, directed and performed by different artistic trios; exploring shame, joy, truth, diversity, absurdity and taboo subjects surrounding journeys through motherhood. 

Two mothers addressing their sons, one in a subservice monologue, is illustrated by footage of people in the streets in Gunk written by Irenosen Okojie. One laments her son’s choices and reminds him that facing a crucial choice, she raised him to be a warrior and not to allow an unfair system to win. The other questions unconditional love through a sharp and revealing letter to her son in A Letter to my Baby written by Anya Reiss, previously staged and published.

The magnificent black and white short film Suited, written by Hannah Khalil, tells of a woman struggling in the water while all the injunctions, observation and judgments everyone has towards new mums and women in general are being enunciated in the background. The poignant reflection of a future mum during the pandemic, looking at the physical changes of the pregnant body and the anxieties that surround a twin pregnancy, in the well-named Venus of Whitechapel, written and performed by Naomi Sheldon.

The uncertainty and unfairness surrounding “the miracle of life” crumples in a stressed pregnant woman in funny clip, The Queen’s Head, written and performed by the curator herself. The striking monologue by the voice of a son remembering being punished at school for a prank against girls and his mother prevented from attending to speak for inspirational women while she’s his forever Number 1, written by E.V Crowe (the musical reference will be clear to some audience members!)

The unexpected social bonding between mothers and the inevitable but not irreversible distance, which can occur with close ones when becoming a mum, are narrated by the accurate voice of a teenage girl in Baby Yoga, written by Suhayla El Bushra. Along with exhaustion, the way that women are taught to take care of their bodies but not the physical and mental effects of childbirth and how to deal with being grateful and happy even as a too long ignored exhausted mother of two is shown in Inside Me, written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm .  

The rest of the series focuses on another face of motherhood, more precisely parenthood, by bringing to light personal experiences and expectations, too long unheard, of diverse artists and activists.  Each one of them deliver their words, without effects, looking directly at the camera and it’s awe-inspiring to watch. 

Writer and disabled rights activist, Athena Stevens, through her journey as a self-proclaimed reasonable woman, shares her thoughts about the implications of becoming a mother and raising children. Using some personal souvenirs through her striking short film, Lakuta vocalist Siggi Mwasote recalls her journey as a single mother, escaping an abusive relationship and her bond with her daughter. When Kalhan Barath was a child, she decided to never have children and she reflects on her choice in her emotional short film and how parenthood’s bond can intervene at a time least expected when she was caring for her friend’s daughter.

Echoing unexpected parenthood bonds, poet and playwright Joelle Taylor shares her honest poem about SLAMbassadors, non-mothers who help raise children. Through interview extracts with curator Katherine Kotz, poet and writer Lemn Sissay MBE unravels the ramifications of adoption by considering his own journey to find and understand his birth parents' choices; whilst trans rights activist and author Juno Dawson discusses the close ties between motherhood and womanhood, surprised that when she came out at 32, nobody asked her about children when the world perceived her as a man and how sex education at school is damaging, especially for nurturing skills and bodily autonomy. 

Edited by Nick Hern Books, The Motherhood Project will soon be released in book form with a collection of texts from artists represented in the project.  As Jenni Maitland from Inside Me recalls, “the more stories we can share and the barriers we can break, the better”. Although voices are shared and initiatives have considerably improved in recent years, there is still a lot of work to be done and The Motherhood Project painfully and directly illustrates this need.

***** Five stars 

Reviewed by: Alexia Irene

The Motherhood Project is available to watch here until 2 May.