How didEye Mama projectcome to be?

"I think the seed idea was there in 2020 when I was home with my kids in lockdown. As a photographer and filmmaker, everything was shutting down and I was ill and I started documenting. I picked up the camera after I was getting better and started documenting my kids and my home and my surroundings. I think it was a coping mechanism and a way to digest what was going on in the world. Artists are lucky that way—we have that tool that we can use to empower us and definitely holding a camera can be a superpower."

"After I picked up the camera, I started telling my story just to myself. I wasn't sharing it with anyone, but I felt like it was giving me strength and connection to the situation I was in and sharing it just with my closest friends. OnInstagram, I saw other women and photographers doing the same. I follow the female gaze, and I follow a lot of female photographers and artists like myself and I was just seeing them like peepholes all over the world. I was looking into their homes and seeing their motherhood and care and connection and hardships and struggles. And to me it was the most fascinating, most beautiful, most heartbreaking, most truthful thing in the world. And it was new to me. It was fresh, it was engaging, it was powerful. And I said to myself, how come nobody's ever collected these images? Why aren't there more books about the home and about motherhood? Why don't artists, mother photographers, ever publish a sort of portfolio that looks at our care and motherhood? Because often it's something unseen and unspoken about. We keep it to ourselves, and that means we're not really showing up as ourselves."

"So after that seed idea started to grow in my head, I started calling itEye Mamaand I pitched it to Alessia Glaviano, the head of Photo Vogue Global, and she thought it was a great idea. I started collecting all of the imageson Instagramfrom 2021. I started with 10 mother photographers and asked them for permission and hashtags. Today we have something like 20,000 followers, 50,000 submissions from 50 countries and we're growing every day. I think it shows there's a big need for Mama Gaze."

Tell us about this term, Mama Gaze.

"I call it Mama Gaze now, the looking of mother photographers at home and family in the self-portrait. Women who identify as photographers and identify as mamas worldwide. It's become a bit of a visual movement over time. But it's taken three years from seed ideato book上个月发表的,在英国,和this month in the U.S. and worldwide."

Do you suggest only photographers submit images—and would it be considered self portraiture?

“这肯定是由人的自我写照onsiders themselves a photographer. They can be established or beginners, but it's the quality of work that I'm looking for and I'm trying to level the playing field. So one of my rules that I allowed myself to break was not to go for only established photographers who had published a book or had exhibited loads before, but rather try and give a chance to newer photographers who didn't have a chance to promote themselves or be out there. Especially in the pandemic and in early motherhood days when your head is down to the wind and you're what I call 'in the forest,' where you can't often see your way out and you're not sure how to get through the day. I wanted to help promote these women as well."

"I was also mixing up the genres for two journalists with portrait, with fine art, and anyone who considers themselves a photographer. Anyone who considers themselves a Mama, as well. That can be IVF, abortion, miscarriage, adoption, foster, non-binary, of course, and trans. Single parents, all the narratives are included, and all the types of photographers. But they do have to be a professional photographer and they do have to be a Mama or carer of some kind, living with children."

How do you choose which submissions to promote?

"It comes down to the quality of work and I like to select it by the Mama Gaze flavor, which to me is the details, the imperfections, the dark and light, and truthful storytelling and self portraiture. That is, in the stories themselves, the unseen things that don't appear in social media and mainstream media. It's a very particular flavor, and it varies greatly from mother to mother. They each have their own stories, but in the overview they build this bigger puzzle and fill this bigger picture of the Mama narrative, which is telling our own stories of motherhood and care, but in a way that's visually pleasing with visual pleasure so that everyone can engage with it. I say motherhood isn't for mothers, it's for humanity because we're all children."

How did you see the themes and work submissions change over the course of the pandemic?

"In the early days of the pandemic, the content was a lot darker. Obviously, there was a lot of unknowns with our safety and wellbeing and mothers were juggling a lot. There was a lot of tricky times to handle, whether it was homeschooling and work or losing your job or not, having your family close by, or losing your childcare, or losing your sanity—or all of the above! There was a lot of dark content, and I actually found that very engaging. It's comforting to me to see women struggling in their visual content, because it was refreshing to see people share their realities. You feel part of a group and part of a collective when you feel seen and like everyone's human and everyone's struggling and not everyone is a mum influencer. An influencer wearing white and juggling apple pies and kids like it's no big deal—because it is a big deal."

"I think the content has become slightly lighter since lockdown ended. But again, I think what I'm drawn to is the dark and light and the duality. I don't want to go to the cutesy or very cozy or super happy fake imagery or mum influencer imagery, because that's already out there. And though I respect these women, it should come with a waiver that says this is fake or this is manipulated or this isn't real motherhood."

"What I'm really looking for is truthful storytelling with very powerful photography that can make a difference and that can be funny and engaging and even fantastical, because often the everyday can be fantastical and beauty can be found when you look close up at details. That's what I really believe. And there's like a dark undercurrent that goes through motherhood of this duality of this joy of being a mother, but this fear and sleeplessness and anxiety that comes with motherhood, and that's often not spoken about, that leaves you on edge. I think sharing those truths is really crucial for empowering mothers and carers these days."

Now that theEye Mama bookis out in the world—will the project keep chugging along per usual?

"Yes—per usual, accepting submissions, and publishing on social. But we're an unfunded platform. We've only been funded for the open call, which we did on Picta for the book. We were funded by MPB and we had another small funder by pick time. That means I was doing all the work solo up until the book, without any money coming in. I don't think I can really continue in the same format moving forward. I think reaching a book was really important to me because social media came with censorship and there's a lot of instability there and some trolling and other issues for mothers and motherhood sharing."

"I wanted the book to be a historical document that you could put on the shelf and a kid in 1,000 years could pick it up and look through, or a mother or husband or just a human could look through and say, wow, this was motherhood in 2020 or 2023. This is what it looked like. These are stories by women. The book was really crucial and I think to go back to being a social media platform, I'd love to do it. I'd love to make an Eye Mama too, and an Instagram platform and even an archive online that's ongoing. But I'd need to find a proper sponsor moving forward, so that we could do it properly with a team. And that's what we're looking at right now. And I'm hoping the book, people seeing the book, engaging with the book, will bring back interest and people who could collaborate with me on this collective vision that's really important and crucial now more than ever and giving it visibility and empowering it by sponsoring it. Maybe we can make an Eye Mama and Eye Papa archive and an ongoing Instagram platform and maybe website for this important visual movement."

How would you describe this work, within the larger body of motherhood portrayed through art and photography?

"The Mama Gaze for me is the personal truths, the self portrait, the dark and light, the duality within motherhood of the hardships and the joy, not just one thing or the other. And it's a flavor of close-ups and of the fantasy and every day and all of those things that comprise the very specific flavor of Mama Gaze."

"If you want to know what it is exactly, you'll have to go and scroll through theEye Mama Project,Instagram, and theEye Mamabook. I think that gives the best idea. Looking through the images is the best way I can describe it, because as I say, you know, if I was a person who worked with words, I would write a book, but I'm a person who works with visuals and I felt my calling was to collect and curate this body of work. I couldn't unsee it once I'd seen it and I felt it was my calling to make it and it came easily to me. The visual body of work does the talking for me in a way."

What's been the most satisfying part of the Eye Mama project for you?

"I think each stage was really satisfying. Creating the Instagram was really satisfying. Connecting with all the mothers, curating all the images, and then making the book and holding the book in my hand each had a magic moment. Curating the book was really magical, but also quite tough because I had to lose so many images with the process. I just go back to the imagery whenever I feel down or depressed or failed in some way. Because with any big project, obviously you've had many failures along the way. Many disheartening moments, many moments where you feel like it's not going anywhere or not succeeding. Or somebody doesn't do you a favor or does do you a favor or hurts you or doesn't hurt you. And you know there's going to be all of that on the long, big journey. So people shouldn't be fooled by Instagram."

"It wasn't that it just went from an idea to Eye Mama project toEye Mamabook. There were times when I was on the floor crying and feeling sorry for myself when things failed or didn't take off. And then times when it was amazing and everything took off, like when the book was signed off or when the book came out and when we got published inNational GeographicorVogueorWall Street Journal. It's all a rollercoaster and really it's about holding on tight and just being completely under the influence. Drunk in love with the Mama Gaze, which I am and was."

Find out more about the Eye Mama project atEyeMamaProject.com,@eyemamaprojecton Instagram, and by purchasing the bookEye Mama: Poetic Truths of Home and Motherhood(published by teNeues).