Eva Ďurovec

There is a story about a meatball which comes out of nowhere, hitting some people's heads and changing their lives forever. There is a mouse that gets caught while trying to find a cheesy snack. There has been a 100% increase in the cost of rent in Berlin in the past 10 years and no increase in my wages. A bag full of basmati rice. A teacher stuck at work waiting for students stuck at work. There is the price one pays to purchase organic underwear so that their intimate parts are not stifled from nine hours in the office chair. There are 10 missed calls from my mother. There are places to which one cannot return and cities where it is impossible to live. There are fertility treatments that send fish oil straight into the veins two days before and two days after ovulation. The feeling of a needle in the middle of the uterus, which could be due to pregnancy, or due to fear. There is a Master's thesis which is no Master's thesis. There is a book that was not intended to be published, that was not intended to be read.

Eva Ďurovec works as a software tester 40 hours per week and studies art at the same time. There are not enough hours in the day to complete everything, to comply with everything. And then there is also her desire to have children. The question: how can all of this be reconciled within the profession of artist? Ďurovec investigates the possibilities that arise from different class formats, and asks what we produce and reproduce—with our bodies, through our routines, trapped between the recurring desires and cruelties of daily life.

Eva Ďurovec (*1981 in Snina, former Czechoslovakia) studied Spatial Strategies at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weiensee. Her work deals with living-space and life-fulfillment in the context of social, economic, and environmental crises, and with issues of corporate power and kleptocracy.

The notion of a mother seems simple enough. But just one shy cut beneath the surface lies a multitude of facets, problems, questions, contradictions and wonders all connected to the idea of maternity. Biologically speaking, every person has a mother; perhaps it is the one fact we all have in common. Nevertheless this issue, dedicated to Mother, raises more questions than it is able to answer. Precisely because everyone appears to understand what a mother is, many crucial aspects of the topic are never questioned and are instead taken as a given. Is a mother defined by just having a child, or is it a child that defines the mother? Can we look at the mother without assuming womanhood? Can we untie the gendered attributes bound to the role of a mother? And what exactly are the notions of gender and sex that are connected to the common idea of motherhood? Where do they stem from? What kind of social, biological and economic pressure do mothers and potential mothers face?

In this issue, we explore alternative family structures and how responsibilities of parenting might be shared; prevailing working conditions for mothers in the arts; difficulties, challenges and prejudices mothers face in their professional lives, and what an ideal work environment might look like. Simultaneously, this issue deals with disappointments and unfulfilled expectations in the mother-child relationship, and again at that relationship in the social context. We picture the past and the present in the process of envisioning what maternity could look like in the future

Contributors 
Adrian Williams, A.L. Steiner, Alexander Rischer, A.M. Bang, Andrew Stone, Anne Döring, Axel Loytved, Burk Koller, Ceyenne Doroshow, Eva Ďurovec, Flaka Haliti, Hanne Lippard, Henrik Olesen, Johannes Sturm, Julie Béna, Katharina Bosse, Lauren Strom-Berg, Lena Greene, Lila de Magalhaes, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Matheus Rocha Pitta, Nadine Droste, Nicola Gördes, Nicolaas Schmidt, Patricia Gray, Penny Goring, Peter Piller, Raphaela Vogel, Stella Rossié, Ulla von Brandenburg, Vincent Ramos.