Matrescence and Performance
Becoming/Unbecoming
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Intellect
Published:3rd Apr '26
Should be back in stock very soon
An exploration of what performance can do to expand conventional representations of becoming a mother. Maternal bodies and processes of pregnancy, childbirth and sustenance have historically been depicted in art and literature as variously uncanny, abject, grotesque, monstrous, and hybrid.
Societal conventions and myths around what makes a good or bad mother have limited the representations of maternal ambivalence and labour. Lived experiences of matrescence as depicted by mothers themselves have remained almost invisible with little exposure in galleries or mainstream art and media. Challenging complex and disparaging representations, or the erasure and invisibility of experiences of matrescence altogether, contemporary mother/artists working in the field of performance use their live bodies to subvert dominant images of conventional myths of motherhood.
Using strategies of mimesis, liveness, embodiment, relationality, and performativity to render their own matrescent bodies, these artists explore historically pejorative theoretical concepts and aesthetics in new, feminist ways. This book frames performance as a site where becoming a mother can be understood as both a becoming and an unbecoming to expand understandings of matrescence.
This is a profound and original book adding an important perspective to the field of maternal performance scholarship. Matrescence and Performance is a highly thoughtful investigation of maternal artmaking, and a joy to read. Laura Bissell manages to skilfully bring together analysis of works by emerging and established artists and place this alongside personal and embodied accounts of spectatorship and the author’s own maternal experience. Bissell expands and challenges what it means to become mother in a deeply affective manner – moving, challenging and delighting in equal measure. Through an engagement with diverse perspectives from both art practice and feminist theory, including live and digital performance, the book opens up and enlarges matrescence in a manner that is generous, political, and original.
-- Professor Emily Underwood-Lee, University of South Wales, UK.Laura Bissell’s expansive feminist analysis of matrescence in performance offers an innovative and necessary lens for understanding the complexities and ambiguities of motherhood. Written from a perspective of deep understanding, keen sensitivity and theoretical expertise, Matrescence and Performance: Becoming/Unbecoming walks the reader through a wide array of works by contemporary artists working in performance, from live art to theatre. By considering matrescence as alternately monstrous, grotesque, feral, abject and uncanny, Bissell asks us to reconsider ingrained mythologies, stereotypes and assumptions around motherhood. At times confronting, and ultimately deeply moving, Matrescence and Performance carefully considers all facets of the maternal experience, from pregnancy and childbirth to loss, infertility and refusal. Bissell’s nuanced and absorbing engagement with topics often misrepresented or under-explored is essential reading for researchers working on feminist contemporary performance practice.
-- Dr Lucy Weir, Reader in History of Art, University of Edinburgh, UK.Matrescence and Performance: Becoming/Unbecoming introduces a wide range of topics that explore the duality of maternal experience, while expanding beyond biological maternals into more-than-human existence. In this powerfully argued book, Bissell takes a clear feminist position when discussing matrescence in art and explores the feminist blind spot around matrescence; a much-needed perspective. This is a splendid addition to maternal discourse that celebrates creativity and artistic agency.
-- Dr Elena Marchevska, Professor of Artistic Research, London South Bank UniverISBN: 9781835952269
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
196 pages