The Missing Mother Conference

Description

This interdisciplinary online conference, which featured keynote speaker Dr Andrea O’Reilly (York University, Toronto), aimed to address the spaces within scholarly and creative inquiry from which the figure of the mother had been historically excluded. Dr O’Reilly’s influential scholarship on matricentric feminism had illuminated the persistent neglect of the mother within academic feminism. Developed from a critical investigation into canonical strands of academic feminism, the conference also examined art history, a field that had similarly marginalised maternal art, resulting in traditions of critique where representations of maternity existed in obscurity, culminating in an unintended feminist separatism.

Dr Mullaney played a central role in organising and conceptualising the conference. As a visual artist, academic, and activist, Dr Mullaney's research and practice had long focused on themes of feminism, maternity, and their underrepresentation in art and academia. She convened the conference and guided its thematic focus on ‘the missing mother.’ Mullaney’s expertise shaped by her doctoral research and by projects such as “Enemies of Good Art," informed both the scholarly rigour and the creative direction of the event, ensuring that the conversation extended beyond established discourses into traditionally marginalised or unseen spaces.

Period	21 Apr 2021 → 23 Apr 2023
Event type	Conference
Location	Bolton, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International