SHWETA BIST | Cooking (Sh!t I Do), 2024

Every day, mothers do wide-ranging physical, mental, and emotional work– programming the present and future for their children while constantly responding to the environment where they are raising a family. Sara Ruddick called this Maternal Thinking.* She proposed that mothering delivers profound socio-political and economic significance and deserves critical evaluation. Inspired by Ruddick’s philosophy and using myself as a subject in the series, Sh!t I Do, I composite digital photographs to create domestic scenes depicting a mother engaged in chores. She performs mundane tasks, often multitasking or juggling personal work with care work, fulfilling her family's needs while socializing her daughters in response to the current socio-political milieu. She meets the viewer's gaze, insisting on acknowledgment of her labor and its value. For her, the domestic sphere is a site for resistance. Some objects in these household scenes are necessary evils of our modern lifestyles, while others allude to a bi-cultural home. I use symbolism to suggest ideas or attributes. Flowers bloom over young girls who are coming of age as their mother tends to their evolving needs. Outfits created with Indian Rupees and embellished with digitally drawn lace are intended to give the impression of a comfortable (royal) life. But, although it may seem to an onlooker that all is well, the situation may warrant deeper consideration. The currency used is, in fact, demonetized.** Its lack of value is meant to seem absurd and lead the viewer to contemplate the value of motherwork, or further, that non-recognition of such labor can lead to a devaluation of one’s self-worth. Feminist progress got us to the point of more or less equal pay, but today pay inequality is largely on account of a motherhood gap because the brunt of care work still falls primarily on mothers. In a society where power is synonymous with capital, care work is relegated to invisibility, often adversely affecting their financial, mental, and physical health. This project aims to assert that these issues need attention and hopes to encourage dialogue about mothering as thoughtful, value-generating work that responds to and contributes to society.

* Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace, 1989

**The ₹500 bills used in the making of this project were gifts I received, on visits back home to Delhi, that were subsequently stripped of their legal tender in 2016 by the Indian government. There is a tradition in India to give cash as gifts, as it is considered more useful than objects that may be superfluous. This cultural practice perhaps stems from the fact that historically most Indian women, whether they are housewives or work outside the home, are not allowed financial freedom without male consent. Therefore, it is a common practice for women to stash bills in their homes, often without the knowledge of their spouses. In 2016 the ₹500 and ₹1,000 bills were demonetized by the Indian government. It has since been found that, as a result of the sudden demonetization, many Indian women were disproportionately (adversely) affected.

BIO

Shweta Bist (b. 1980) is a lens-based artist born in New Delhi, India and currently working and living in New York. Inspired by personal narratives, her photographic work is an exploration of maternal subjectivity. She is a postgraduate in commerce from Delhi University, India, and an alumna of the School of Visual Arts Continuing Education, New York. With an interest in psychology and philosophy, Shweta uses metaphors of color, poetry, and symbolisms from nature and art history to explore identity, memories, perception, and emotions from a maternal and feminist perspective. In addition to exhibitions in the United States, Canada, and the UK, Shweta has made presentations at academic and art conferences on Mother Studies in the US and UK. She is an artist mentor with Spilt Milk Gallery, Edinburgh, and is a co-founder of Mother Creatrix Collective, a New York- based collective that supports the work of artist-mothers by creating exhibition opportunities for its members.