MOTHER (2020-2021)

The rural cemetery became popular in the mid-nineteenth century as health concerns from overcrowding pushed burial grounds outside the city. And so it seemed fitting that during the forced isolation of the early-pandemic I would social-distance at Oak Hill, the rural cemetery just up the road from me at the edge of my Kansas town.

Like most rural cemeteries, this landscape was also designed as a Romantic park-like space for visitors to convene with a Nature seen as separate from society. Here, during months of solitary walks, I was confronted with time, loss, alienation, and the nature of an enmeshed world. Over the years many of the tombstones have joined with the Earth, and I am struck by the remains of those bearing simply the name Mother—anonymous women memorialized only by the way they related in life to others. Rearranging this patriarchal symbol into repetition during a time of collective estrangement, I also read a primal cry for secure connection, and location markers for an essential home place. 

As the world began to re-open, I traveled to New York, my once-adopted city, and photographed in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood cemetery, after which Oak Hill was modeled, and where I found the same mother stones. I made these pictures over the course of a year, one full cycle of seasons. 

Please click on the image links below to view the portfolio of this body of work as well as documentation of exhibitions and publications.

PUBLICATIONS
2022 Elise Kirk, Mother, P&T Publications, Lawrence, KS (Monograph, Forthcoming)

EXHIBITIONS
2021 NYC Homecoming, ISCP International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn, NY
2021 What Would The Egg Do, The New School XReality Center, New York, NY, Virtual Exhibition
2020 You Are Not Wonderful Just Because You Are a Mother, Artist/Mother Podcast, Virtual Exhibition (Juror: Qiana Mestrich) (catalog)

RESIDENCIES
2021 International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York (June - August) (continued work while in residence)