MotherWorks
A photography exhibition illustrating the brilliant and bizarre duality of the life of working mums. Celebrating the women who hold up the economy with one hand and a baby with the other.
MotherWorks timeline
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IWD 2018
The Launch of #MotherWorks in Brixton for International Women’s Day 2018 opened by Sarah Olney MP.
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Wavemaker
Working with Wavemaker we were able developed the idea as an exhibition and D&I event for business.
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Royal Photographic Society
We were so excited about #MotherWorks exhibition being part of the RPS’s 100 Heroines Exhibition in Chesea over the summer 2019.
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IWD 2020
Celebrating International Women’s Day with #MotherWorks photography exhibition in Parliament.
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Women's History Month
To celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, the MotherWorks exhibition was on display in Brixton Library Gallery.
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St Botolphs
We were thrilled when Marsh, Lockton and Clyde & Co asked us to create a Motherworks exhibition for the foyer of their stunning St Botolph Building in the City of London.
MotherWorks is an ongoing photography exhibition. Images and stories of the lives of almost 60 working mums from the C-Suite to the shop floor, from MPs and actors to teachers and farmers.
This is an opportunity for you to add the stars from your organisation to the MotherWorks collection. By bringing the exhibition into the workplace, we help organisations make their working mothers feel represented and recognised, essential for retaining talent and encouraging returners. A new, bright and bold way to celebrate diversity and inclusion.
Lise Meyrick created a series of animations for the MotherWorks campaign
In the press
Read Hadley Freeman's Guardian article
MotherWorks in The Telegraph for IWD 2020.
Learn more about MotherWorks in the workplace in marcommnews
“She has very cleverly both composed a shot and made it appear spontaneous. But the real genius is that each photo is part of a story – a single sentence which leaves you wondering about the rest of the paragraph.” Leslie Manasseh Brixton Bugle
Bespoke Design
As women who have worked in creative industries, we discovered a shared passion to change the way women and mothers in particular are represented and recognised in the media and at work. We are working mums and friends and have supported each other as our kids have grown. The branding needed to reflect that. Lise Meyrick created a strong logo in stand out colours, tangerine and vivid blue, showing the duality of being a working mum.
A selection of images and stories from the exhibitions
Fiona Freund - Founder and Photographer at WeAre
“I remember hearing Jo Whiley talking about breastfeeding at work (at Radio 1) - between records and sometimes during interviews - which apparently threw Christopher Eccelstone. I was lucky enough to be able to take my sons to shoots (until they were mobile enough to dismantle my lighting rig.) They were cuddled by celebrities and CEOs and Mike Trow, the picture editor at Vogue who encouraged me to bring them along, was a brilliant surrogate nanny.
Sadly for most women, this is not possible and so begins the weird duality of the life of the mother who works: while smartly dressed ready to head out to an important meeting, kissing little ones goodbye without clothes being smeared and hearts being broken. The mother heading off to her supermarket/cafe shift to shouts of "bring us back a treat mum!" The multitasking mum who works from home, on a conference call while wiping something unspeakable off the floor. Many working mothers feel that they are expected to work like they don’t have children and parent like they don’t have a job.
As a photographer, I wanted to capture these two worlds in one and invite the viewer to spend some time inhaling the chaos and wondering at the extraordinary achievements of every ordinary mum. These pictures and stories illustrate their highs and lows, and show their difficult, complicated and consequently sometimes hilarious lives.
This exhibition was inspired by MP Sarah Olney’s International Women’s Day speech in the House of Commons “Let's celebrate the everyday achievement of women whether it's in the home or in the workplace.”
Vanessa Vallely OBE
CEO of WeAreTheCity
The big plan was to have a kick ass career. Having kids were never part of the story. I wasn’t maternal and an only child I had never been around babies. I was sure that I would fail all things motherhood should I ever choose to give it a go. I got married, and we said we would try for kids to see what happened. Three months later I was pregnant. I spent the next six months in a world of wonder trying to work out how I would ever look after a baby when I hadn’t properly grown up myself. When Mia was born in 2001, I just didn’t have the instant bonding that I had read about in the magazines. It was only when she was taken away from me due to ill health less than a day after she was born, that I was flooded with this overwhelming, uncontrollable sense of love and responsibility. I was her mum and she was my beautiful baby. What followed was a beautiful awakening and a realisation of motherhood and all the joys (and often the challenges) that come with it. Then came baby no, 2, the beautiful Ella. I was a dab hand at this point. At the height of my career in banking both my kids were under five. Late nights and balancing trips abroad for work alongside being a mum was tough. I beat myself up for many years about wanting a career and being a mum, I still do at times. When they entered their teenage year’s I decided that I wasn’t going to miss that very important time in their lives where they were becoming young women. I hung up my corporate heels. It came with compromises, but it was one of the best decision I ever made. I wouldn’t say it was quite as I had imagined it, eg baking apple pies and doing crafts, it was more about being happy if I got the odd grunt of acknowledgement. Now a few years on, they have morphed into the most amazing young women who I am super proud of. I wouldn’t change that journey for the world.
Miranda Sawyer
Journalist and Author
Before having children, I used to work myself up to writing. I’d spend hours on displacement activities: cleaning, organising, staring out of the window. Now, if I have a deadline, I just write. I only have a few solo hours in the day to work, so I just get on with it. I’ve found I can write anywhere. I’ve banged out pieces on the tube, in Brockwell Park, and once in the car park at Legoland.
I don’t think of myself as mum first, writer second, or the other way around. It’s all mixed up, tangled around together, as life is. I don’t lie about combining parenting and work. I tell my employers that I can’t do an interview on a particular weekend, because it’s my kid’s birthday. I don’t see that as any less legitimate than saying I can’t do an interview because I’m busy with work.
There is a rigidity to children’s lives that I find hard. It’s not their fault, but I find the regular timetable of school and after school activities difficult. Up at the same time, dressed, breakfast, out at the same time, off to the same place - day after day after day. Routine makes time rush past and that’s the most difficult part of parenting for me. I want to slow time down.I didn't start my business until I was already a mother, so the work was the adjustment, not the mothering. This child had two self employed parents, and with a little juggling, it was possible for us both to work as we needed. Perhaps it meant we didn't work as hard as we should...but work-life balance and all that, it was a great time.
Sarah Olney
M.P. for Richmond Park and inspiration for #MotherWorks
One of the advantages of being a London MP is that I get to go home to my family every evening and spend time with them every morning. As the mother of young children, this is a particular blessing to me, but it does mean that I live a life of contrasts. Yesterday, for example, I spent the first part of the morning trying to get my son to clean his teeth and my daughter to brush her hair. I then travelled into Westminster and challenged the Prime Minister in the Chamber about her spending priorities for education. Of the two things, the latter was more remarked upon—it was heard by Members here, recorded in Hansard and shared on Twitter—but getting my son to clean his teeth was the greater achievement in many ways. It took more ingenuity, effort and emotional commitment, but nobody noticed, cared or applauded me for it.
It often sounds ironic or self-deprecating to refer to the tasks of motherhood as being more taxing than tasks carried out in the professional sphere, but in this case, I am not being ironic; it is precisely true. We are so used to underplaying the work we do as mothers and in the home that we do not think anyone will take us seriously if we talk seriously about it. So today, in the spirit of the motion to recognise the achievements of women, I want to celebrate the everyday, unacknowledged, unrewarded and unnoticed achievements of women.
Lulu Lincoln
Teacher
“Mum, I know you’re working but...”
What do I love most about my life? I love that in one day I can be a teacher, chef, writer, assessor, friend, guidance counsellor, wife and a mum all at the same time.
I have tried (unsuccessfully) to compartmentalise every aspect of my life: my marriage, my home, motherhood, my faith, my career, friendships... The list is endless.
The day I realised my best laid plans had failed was when I decided to plan my lessons from home, for the week ahead. What actually happened was for four out of the five hours that I spent on the computer I was having an ongoing conversation that started with: “Mum, I know you are working but...”
The first five times I was interrupted, I could feel myself in what I would call:
“Work mode” but to my wonderful family, I was really just a lady in her pyjamas using the computer on a Saturday. Mum? Working? On a Saturday? Never.
So I turned around and squealed in a frequency only other mums would understand: “I AM TRYING TO WORK!!! WILL YOU LEAVE ME ALONE. I JUST WANT ONE HOUR ON THE COMPUTER. JUST ONE HOUR!!” (Oscar-winning tears about how difficult my life is.)
It didn’t work.
Then I remembered, I’m not just a teacher, I’m a mum, a wife, I’m my daughter’s biggest fan, I’m my husband’s greatest cheerleader, I am a role model to my class.
So I switched off my feigned “work mode” and utilised my Mummy-super power... Multitasking and lots of prayers.
You can buy the MotherWorks book here
Making working mums part of the big picture
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390,000
An estimated 390,000 pregnant women and new mothers experience negative and potentially discriminatory treatment at work each year
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50%
A recent TUC report found that 50% of working mothers had a request for flexible working turned down or only partly accepted.
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54,000
54,000 women a year lose their job simply for getting pregnant.
MotherWorks has developed into a unique, creative event, hosted and sponsored by organisations across the UK to drive workplace gender equality initiatives and hero women in the workplace.
MotherWorks has developed into a unique, creative event, hosted and sponsored by organisations across the UK to drive workplace gender equality initiatives and hero women in the workplace.