Mothering

In Mothering, an adult daughter carries her mother on her back, struggling through an autumnal forest. Mothering refers to motherhood as an ongoing and changing active state of being and a caring, not necessarily tied to biological motherhood alone.

The Finnish title Äitiä (to mother) can be read from beginning to end and end to beginning – referring to the theme of the work as the turn of the caring relationship with the ageing of one’s parents. Filming the video, the acting has been done backwards and the movement has then been reversed. The handheld camera and the backward movement create a fragile quality in the way of walking, emphasizing the gestures of the aging body.

The chorus of the soundtrack repeats in a loop, like everyday life, days and years. There’s a similar loop in the process of ageing, life is layered and change is cyclical. The mother and daughter are attached to each other, to each other’s bodies.

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