Our Mother by Jam Westwood 2023

This final jug installation piece reimagines not one particular artefact or period of history, but she is both timeless and of all time. She References Venus de Milo (100BC), The Mannekin-Pis (15thC), Harvest Jugs and Puzzle jugs (18thC), Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), the visible workings of HR Giger (20thC) and the opening line of the Lords Prayer (1st centuryish).

‘Our Mother’ is both Mother Nature and all mothers.
Onlookers might notice first the act of breastfeeding. An act of nature which often raises eyebrows, discussion and affection simultaneously. Mother nature nurtures all, she’s a feeder, a grower and a bringer of life but are we missing the part of the narrative where she is also the most awesome scientist of all time? Controlling the balance of the natural world, the tides, the storms, the movement of Earth and moon, gravity and inevitably the universe.

How often do we read professional women’s accolades listed as, for example, ‘full time mother… and an athlete’ and how rarely do we see those descriptors for professional men who are fathers? Society likes to remind women specifically what they are here for and keep them in that box. But hidden away on the back of ‘Our Mother’, beneath her operational parts, lies the statement ‘My other job is at N.A.S.A’ – like a forgotten tramp stamp tattoo from the 90’s.