JOYCE GUO
Interview with Jacqui Driver
The Mothering Enclosure
Solo show featuring work by Jacqui Driver
AD Space
26 October – 5 November, 2022
Images by Joyce Guo and Zoe Schaeper
Instagram: Jacqui Driver @jaxdriver; Joyce Guo@ j_art0117
Joyce Guo (JG): Hi Jacqui, can you please tell us a bit about you as an artist and your art practice?
Jacqui Driver (JD): I am a print maker, primarily make lithographs. I also experiment with installation, film and sound to create more of an atmosphere within the spaces that I'm exhibiting. For this exhibition ‘The Mothering Enclosure’, I’m collaborating with two other artists. My art practice primarily looks at ‘mothering’ and the complexities of being a mother. I explore this concept through ‘the mothering thicket’. For me personally, being in the middle of a thicket remind me of childhood fairy stories, places where you're surrounded by the branches and nested within the thicket. And that reminds me of growing the branches through the family history to form your extended family. Thicket also relates to traumas and mental health issues. Whilst it protects you, it is also holding on to you as a mother. Once you're grown into the thicket, you're a part of the thicket. Especially when you're a mother, you always remember, no matter when your children grow up and become independent adults, you still play the role of mother. I have found especially when it comes to mental health, you permanently feel attached to your children and your family history. Even now, I still feel attached to my mother and my grandmother’s ancestral history. That’s why I would like to explore these themes further in my art practice.
JG: You have mentioned about the idea of ‘motherhood’ being the major theme in your practice. Can you tell us about how does motherhood influence your practice as an artist?
JD: What I love about being a mother is the complexity of it. Within mothering, you have a lot of ambivalence. As a mother. I have three children, two of whom are queer, one is non binary. I had a child with autism, who has no control over their bad behaviours. Having a child with mental health issues is hugely demanding. There’re always societal expectations to blame the mother as the root cause of all mental health issues. There was period of traumatic memories where the entire family went through this horrendous timeout experience together, because there was always this uncontrolled dysfunctional behaviour going on tantrums, huge outbursts of anger would happen. And it was very difficult to know how to deal with this, especially as a child grew older and stronger, where domestic violence became an issue. This forms a complex mother-child power dynamic that pushes me to find a way of expressing the pain and trauma in a way that we could share our stories.
That’s why I decided to create the exhibition ‘The Mothering Enclosure’, as I want to create a space where you feel you feel hugged, where you feel supported, and where anybody can feel that they can go and be in a safer space to express their stories, memories or family traumas from the past.
JG: How does your creative process begin?
JD: It started from the moment of having panic attacks when I was trying to deal with my child but not getting the support I needed. I was trying to find a way of expressing being on the edge of those panic attacks, and then my art just took off from there. My creative process just went into a direction that is completely different to what I thought I was making. The more I drew my thickets, the more I printed my large installation prints. I realised that I wasn't printing trauma and static spaces. I was printing transformative spaces where you could reflect. I was making spaces where people could just be calm and just not feel threatened like you were in an unsafe space.
JG: It’s interesting to hear that your creative practice changes throughout the process. Is there any particular way that you allow your ideas to evolve overtime?
JD: Yeah, so I love touring around the city coastlines in Sydney and documenting my ideas through sketches, drawings and photographs. I like to explore the rock landscape, such as the sandstone cliff edges, caves and cabins. I found something really fascinating by the way that it folds and unfolds, where sandstone seems to layer itself and have all these sorts of spaces within it. This allows me to explore further into how these spaces transform our experience. Moreover, I'm always being stimulated by these walks along the coastline, where I once came across this tree that was completely and utterly covered in weeds. This is how I start my drawings, and then I let them decide for themselves to evolve into slightly different directions. This process allows me to maintain the consistency in the past three or four years in my art practice where I keep being drawn back to the idea of ‘thicket’ in all forms.
JG: You have mentioned about the transgenerational experience of ‘mothering’ and how the mother-child relationship can be reversed overtime. How do you envision to interpret this concept in your exhibition?
JD: Well, for this new exhibition, I am collaborating with my children through dance, film, sound and performance in an open space. The three of us began to collaborate on film-making back at the end of 2020, in the middle of lockdown. Then I have also made them three costumes out of two dresses and one shirt for them to explore their non binary myths and identities. As they perform in the space, they are expressing their experience of being mothered through childhood traumas. Therefore, I am excited to experiment with such collaborative practice, where I envision the audience to gain a fuller multi-dimensional experience of mothering and all its intricacies. This allows me to express the transgenerational trauma, the good, the bad, the soft, the hard, the prickly, and the whole surrounding it.
JG: I am curious to learn that as a female artist and being a mother at the same time, you have to deal with a lot of social expectations and emotional burden. Do you think the society nowadays provide enough space and support for you to express your voice? Or do you think there's still room for progress?
JD: That's a really good question. I think there's still a huge need for more support. I think mothers aren't generally supported very well at all. Especially when you are in the role of a mother, it is difficult to keep a psychological distance with your children because you are always attached to taking care of their wellbeing. I was reading a PHD article about this topic, where a lot of mothers in their 50s and 60s in Isreal need to spend almost 24 hours a day to look after their children with severe mental health problems. I found it depressing and scary to think of those mothers who need social support throughout their entire lives but still are not eligible to access the support. This has been the same difficult situation for me, where I noticed that this hidden side of being a caregiver with the lack of community access and support, either psychologically or financially.
JG: How do you overcome this challenge and still continue to pursue your career as an artist?
JD: I found my art was my self-help. When I was drawing, I lose myself, I switch off, and make lithographs on the stones. I let my drawing absorbs the intensity of what's happening around me. The stone absorbs the image, and my pain within it. Another great thing about art is that it's good for telling stories, where you can safely share with other people. Even if people don't know what the art is about, they can get a feeling from it. In one of my latest exhibitions, a mother who had autistic children told me that she really understood what my art is about because of similar mothering experience. This is the moment where I feel the power of art in bringing the community together to express community-orientated themes through shared experience.
JG: Would you consider bringing in more community and audiences to be involved in your future projects?
JD: Definitely, I like the idea of collaborating, the more stories that are told about it, the better to give the audience a broader perspective. There are so many different mothers out there who had so many different experiences and their voices need to be heard. I would like to explore this diversity of experience, the complexity and myths of mothering further by telling a visual narrative. I want to create an open space through collaboration where people can tap into those memories and think of the positives, the negatives and the intricacies of their ‘mothering’ or caregiving experience.
