Eternal Maternal
KST Presents
Fran Flaherty & Meg Foley
Monday, September 18 – Sunday, December 17, 2023
Opening Reception: Monday, September 18, 6:00pm
Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25
Through Fran Flaherty’s Anthropology of Motherhood and Meg Foley’s Blood Baby, the visual art exhibition Eternal Maternal examines the details and expressions that encompass the nature of motherhood, acknowledging mothering as both an active pursuit and a fundamental state of existence, irrespective of and subject to gender. Flaherty and Foley delve into the realm of divine bodies, illuminating the inherent connection between mothering and the sacred. The works unveil the natural act of mothering intertwined with the profound forces of unconscious geology. Eternal Maternal serves as a testament to the extraordinary beauty and complexity inherent in the act of mothering, inviting contemplation, challenging preconceptions, and celebrating the diversity of maternal experiences. Curated by DS Kinsel.
Eternal Maternal is on view at KST’s lobby gallery. The gallery is open to the public during and one hour before every KST Presents event. Arrive early and take a look!
Photo Credit: Fran Flaherty
AND DON’T MISS…
Meg Foley
Blood Baby: Communion
Friday & Saturday, September 22* – 23, 2023
7:30pm
*Post performance discussion with ASL interpretation
Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $15 – $35
Welcome Dinner & Artist Talk
Fran Flaherty & Meg Foley
Monday, September 18, 2023
6:00pm
*with ASL interpretation
Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25
Queer Parent Convening
with Meg Foley
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
7:00pm
KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25
- ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Fran Flaherty is a Deaf artist, curator, and educator practicing in Pittsburgh, PA, and Rochester, NY. A first-generation immigrant from the Philippines, her work is centered in issues surrounding migrant family relations and assimilation, maternal feminism, & disability aesthetics. Flaherty is the founder of Anthropology of Motherhood, which engages the complex visual, material, emotional, corporeal and lived experiences of motherhood, care-giving, parenting, nurturing and maternal labor. She is also the Director of Dyer Arts Center for the Advancement of Deaf Culture at RIT/NTID, serves on the Advisory Board of the Office of Public Art in Pittsburgh, and is a proud member of the #notwhite collective.
Meg Foley is a queer dance artist, educator, and parent who creates performances and somatic-based events as self-affirming practices. She currently researches gay and trans families and how we are formed. Her improvisational practice builds detailed movement vocabularies out of scientifically-engaged research and lived experience. Artistic collaborations include co-curating Tender Hotel, a 24-hour virtual hotel hosting rooms facilitated by 100+ international artists within Art Station Foundation’s and CounterPulse’s Grand reUnion, and a National Center for Choreography Akron Dancing Lab exploring how artistic and parenting practices overlap with fellow artist parents. She grew up in the DC area, was a creative movement baby who grew up to do a lot of club dancing, studied visual art and dance, and now is a queerdo mama, based in Philadelphia.