“Supporting diversity whether it be age, ethnicity, gender, lone or parental status isn’t just about being fair – it’s also about us allowing a diverse flow of experience, nuance, innovation, invention to flourish so the work, the gallery, the practice of art is as rich as it can be. Dispensation for real life needs to start to be built into all collaborations with artists.” — Melanie Jackson
‘How Not To Exclude Artist Parents: Some Guidelines for Institutions and Residencies’ was written by Hettie Judah and a group of artist mothers, among them Catherine Kurtz, Cecile Johnson Soliz, Chloe Bonfield, Elsa James, Emma Franks, Emma Hart, Emma Talbot, Eva Rothschild, Gaia Fugazza, Helen Benigson, Holly Blakey, Ingrid Berthon-Moine, Joanne Masding, Kate V. Robertson, Laima Leyton, Laura Ford, Macarena Rojas, Magda Bielesz, Maureen Nathan, Melanie Jackson, Naomi Frears, Rana Begum, Rosalind Faram, Sarah Boulton, and Selina Ogilvy.
The guidelines were presented during the online discussion How Not To Exclude Artist Mothers hosted by The Freelands Foundation, London, on 4 March 2021. The roots of this project lie in Hettie’s earlier research into the impact of motherhood on artists’ careers, an essay on which was commissioned by Dr Kate McMillan as part of her 2019 Representation of Female Artists in Britain report.
With thanks to Hannah Bowles for the layout of the original guidelines, to Laima Leyton for translating them into Portuguese, Ingrid Berthon-Moine into French, Magda Bielesz in Polish, Anastasia Shneps-Shneppe, Tatiana Kulikova, Alexandra Pavlovskaya and Mika Plutizky for their work on the Russian translation, Sophie Jung for the German translation, Nicoletta Lambertucci for Italian, Luna Coppola and Silvia Campidelli of Duae Collective in Barcelona for Spanish, Ffion Evans of the Royal Cambrian Academy for Welsh, Fani Parali and Nathalie Karagiannis for Greek, and Anna Perach for Hebrew. With thanks to Back and Forth Collective (Mei Homma, Natsumi Sakamoto, Asako Taki), Timeline Project (Yukiko Nagakura and Yasuko Watanabe), Catherine Harrington, Koki Tanaka and Yuka Tokuyama for the Japanese translation, Art Parenting Social Club (Yuhee Cheong, Dani Daeun Kim, Kyounghee Lee, Yoobin Lim, Kyoung-Young Min, Juwon Park and Seungju Shin) for the Korean translation, to Rania Atef for the Arabic translation, and to Mai Abu ElDahab of Mophradat for proofing the Arabic translation, and to Kija Benford, Milou Van Kessel, Mirthe Berentsen and Karen Van Godtsenhoven for their collective work on the Dutch translation. The audio version of the Guidelines in English was recorded by Lou Mensah, photographer, mother, and host of Shade Podcast.
And to James Bridle for creating this website and Samuel Fouracre for updating.