Mother Artist Salon at Life Is Art Is Motherhood Is Art at Tenri Cultural Institute

Join us for an Artist Salon featuring live music and conversation with two artists who balance active touring with the demands of caring for their young children.

The explor the threads that stitch our inherited worlds—the whispers of old tales passed down by grandmothers, the shadowed weight of mythologies, superstitions, and lullabies, scattered across time and distance.

Drawing from the musical vocabularies of their respective lineages—Celtic and Levantine—this new duo traces melodic and rhythmical contours shaped by centuries of oral memory. They search for the places where their stories overlap: fields of exile, haunted lands, and songs that carry coded truths....

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Join us for an Artist Salon featuring live music and conversation with two artists who balance active touring with the demands of caring for their young children.

The explor the threads that stitch our inherited worlds—the whispers of old tales passed down by grandmothers, the shadowed weight of mythologies, superstitions, and lullabies, scattered across time and distance.

Drawing from the musical vocabularies of their respective lineages—Celtic and Levantine—this new duo traces melodic and rhythmical contours shaped by centuries of oral memory. They search for the places where their stories overlap: fields of exile, haunted lands, and songs that carry coded truths.

This is not a reimagining of the past, but an exploration of a shared present—an exploration of what flows through us unseen, like smoke through veins. This suite of music invites the audience to step into a newly formed world, rooted in the past but written for the present day—a brand new mythology.

This salon is one of a series in conjunction with Life Is Art Is Motherhood Is Art, an exhibition of five artists who are mothers of different generations — Daniela Kostova (Bulgaria), Aline Müller (Brazil), Quynh “Alex” Nguyễn (Vietnam), Katie Heller Saltoun (USA), and Satomi Shirai (Japan). Curated by CRS co-founder Christopher Pelham, the exhibition will be on view at Tenri Cultural Institute of New York from July 21 – 26, 2025.

“Being an artist is to experience a vigorous, experimental life of the mind and of the senses. Parenthood is another enriching experience: primal, haptic and life-affirming. Why are the two still seen as incompatible?” — Jeffrey Boloten and Juliet Hacking, Forward to How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents)

This exhibition highlights the inspiring works being created worldwide by mother artists and examines the multifaceted relationship between motherhood and art-making. Through their diverse photography and 2D works, we invite you to consider the challenges that working mother artists face and reflect on motherhood and child-rearing as fundamentally creative acts, inseparably intertwined with art-making, deserving of our loving attention, respect, and support.

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