Portrait of a (Working) Mother

Portrait of a (Working) Mother is a project on motherhood, career and international mobility. With enormous pressure for modern women to "have it all," working mothers strive to find balance between family and professional life. Juxtaposing visual and narrative representations, this work focuses specifically on expatriate, well-educated, career-oriented mothers living in Geneva.

Small and privileged as this group might seem to be, their concerns are far reaching and include issues of maternal identity, gender equality and migration.

The venture explores increasingly growing tensions around issues of gender equality, career advancement, and personal/professional fulfilment in the contemporary world.

It also addresses identity alterations some mothers experience when their children’s needs take over their own, occasionally to the point of self-dissolution. Such selfhood modifications are especially poignant for mothers raising their children in a foreign country, dealing with linguistic and cultural transmission, as well as negotiation within multicultural couples regarding different parenting paradigms.

The ideal of gender equality and the pressure for contemporary women also creates space for some vulnerability that is balanced with spectacular resilience and power.