Hidden Mother (2014)

cover by Kathryn Shriver

“Hidden mother” photographs are Daguerreotype and tintype portraits of babies and

children taken from the advent of photography until the late 19th century. The

uniqueness of those portraits is the constant presence of a hidden parent (generally

the mother) cloaked under a cloth to hold the child and prevent it from moving, in an

epoch where the exposure times were long.

Why do “hidden mother” images fascinate us? First the images are incomparable to

any elements that we know. They are bizarre, haunting and surreal, yet they seem

like a mundane and established process at the time. Then beyond the bizarreness of

the images, one cannot deny the question of what was the condition of the parent

kept hidden under the clothes. The images confront us to the role of mothers in

society then and now.

The project originated from my own perspective, my own lived experience of

becoming a mother of two children. In taking the responsibility of a mother I felt my

Self just slept away. During that precise period of time my identity as a woman, as

an artist, as a professional simply disappeared. (being retreated inside a house

during the long Quebec winter, the isolation of a just immigrated family did not help.)

I have been concealed under the mothering cloth.

Slowly, my interest and questioning shifted to the perspective of other mothers: while

examining the hundreds of the “hidden mother” images, I felt the concealed figure

was trying to communicate with me. My research also broadened on the history of

early photography, on the family structure in the Victorian era and on women and

photography.

The work is composed of photographic images, a video piece and a series of fiction

short stories that will result in a book.

In the fiction I am creating, I aim to give a voice to other mothers. Their lived

experience is as important as mine, as important as the History. Through the fiction, I

raise questions about patriarchy, about the nature of mothering and whether “lʼAmour

maternel” is innate. I wonder if the stories taking place at the end of the 19th century

have a space to resonate in our present.