‘Sid Jonah Anderson by Lena Simic’ took place in March 2008 as a part of MAP Live event at Source Café in Carlisle.
The live art event features my third baby Sid, who was born on the 7th August 2007. The performance stages that daily labour of mothering, in particular Sid’s bedtime routine. The live action on stage consisted of performing the daily routine with Sid: bathing, dressing, feeding, laying down to sleep.
This very banal everyday action was heightened through its staging. My movement on stage was quite sharp, neat and timed. Props were arranged and the performance space was highly organized. Additionally, the action was complemented by audio-visual footage: extracts from my diary, which I have kept since my last month of pregnancy, and photographs from my walks in the park.
This diary has for me become a generative, critical and contemplative space which charts, marks and critiques notions of the maternal in the time around the baby’s birth and during my maternity leave.
My aim is to de-authorise a private/public binary and acknowledge the labour of parenting within an arts context. The event was done partly through my own desire to thoroughly connect these two spheres of life: children and art – and bring my baby into the gallery/venue context.
