Undo Motherhood is a boxed set of soft-covered trifold booklets titled after the predominant feelings identified by regretful mothers: anger, fear, isolation, exhaustion, guilt, resignation and acceptance. Karlkin’s investigation was driven by a single question: “If you knew then what you know now, would you have made a different choice?” Respectful, intimate imagery makes visible a continuum of ambivalence.

In this conversation, Diana discusses, among other things:

Ideology of motherhood

Collective imagination

Maternal reckoning

Multicultural expectations

Innovating approaches to achieve neutrality

Visually exploring vulnerability

The language of images

Dismantling narratives

Referenced in the episode

Underbau 

[m]otherhood

Singapore International Photography Festival 

Marina Carpena Meyer 

Elinor Carucci — Mother (2013)

Carmen Winant — My Birth (2018)

Sheila Heti — Motherhood (2018)

Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich

The Lost Daughter film (2021) 

The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

Screaming on the Inside by Jessica Grose

“Regretful Mothers” by Anne Kingston, Maclean’s

“Women who wish they weren’t mothers” by Diana Karklin, The Guardian 

1854 Photography on Undo Motherhood, British Journal of Photography

Published by Schilt Publishing

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