How to be Many Mothers?

Part of the second edition of the focus program 'How to be Many Mothers' at NTGent, is a performative walk through the city of Ghent.

What ideas and ideals do we have about ‘motherhood’, mostly defined by patriarchal systems, and what is the difference with ‘mothering’, a practice in which care itself is central? In 2027, NTGent is organising the second edition of its focus program How to be Many Mothers. This time, it centers on the city and urban space as a landscape defined by gender. 

On 8 March 2027, How to be Many Mothers (in the City?) invites you to walk together, slow down the pace of the city and make the rhythms of care visible. Mothers claim the city and imagine it in a new way: a city focused on care.

In Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World, author Leslie Kern shows how cities are built around male experiences and how this makes the daily lives of women, and mothers and carers in particular, structurally more difficult. 

For many, moving around the city is not simply going from a to b. It means manoeuvring with a pushchair along narrow pavements, looking for a spot to feed the baby, or walking faster down a poorly lit street. The city makes care work invisible and pushes motherhood into the private sphere. Then how to we collectively turn the tide?