OPA Live! with Lena Chen and Aino El Solh

Lena Chen and Aino El Solh are members of the Berlin-based artist collective, Maternal Fantasies. Both artists are interested in the intersections between care work, motherhood, and healing practices. While Lena joined the group as the youngest member (and the only one without a child), Aino had a pregnancy and a second child over the course of her involvement with the group. The artists will discuss what they’ve learned from their experiences working in a large collective that actively involves children in the production process. They’ll also discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the group’s working process and personal lives as caregivers.

About Lena Chen

I am a Chinese American artist working across performance and social practice. My work has been exhibited and performed across North America and Europe. As the co-founder of Heal Her, I have partnered with artists, therapists, and communities in seven countries to support survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. Currently, I am a Freshworks Artist-In-Residence at Kelly Strayhorn Theater, the inaugural Vance Waddell Artist-In-Residence at Wave Pool Gallery, and a grantee of the Office of Public Art’s Artists Bridging Social Distance in the Public Realm Initiative. I earned a B.A. in sociology from Harvard University, and am completing a MFA at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art.

About Aino El Solh

I am an artist from Helsinki Finland and currently living in Berlin with my two children. I studied art in the Willem de Kooning Akademie in Rotterdam, where I lived in an old factory and was engaged in the underground cultural scene. From Rotterdam, I returned shortly to Helsinki to complete my MA in the University of Art and Design in the Department of Environmental Art, working simultaneously as a freelance journalist and a waitress. In late 2009, I moved to Germany with a newborn baby, in order to rebuild my life in another relatively long integration process. For ten years, I hosted holiday guests and developed my artwork on the side. In 2017, I joined the Maternal Fantasies collective and started educating myself to become a healer.

About Maternal Fantasies

Maternal Fantasies is an interdisciplinary group of international artists and cultural producers based in Berlin. Recipients of the 2019/20 M.1 Arthur Boskamp Foundation Advancement Award, we have exhibited in Germany, Austria, USA, and UK. We shape the discourse on motherhood and the politics of care through collective artistic processes while enhancing the visibility of contemporary intersectional-eco-feminist positions. From writing autobiographical responses to classic feminist texts to devising performances using children’s games, our multi-media art practice favors inclusive community-oriented experiments as alternatives to traditional hierarchies of art production. Bridging theory and practice, our strategy transforms research on motherhood(s), earth care and care work into frameworks for immersive modes of critique. We integrate rotational authorship and tools of collective care in our mode of our production, opening up the artistic process for (our) children to participate in. Current members are Aino El Solh, Hanne Klaas, Isabell Spengler, Lena Chen, Magdalena Kallenberger, Maicyra Leao and Mikala Hyldig Dal.