00:00:18.460Hey, it's Jo, and welcome to the Under the Influence podcast.
00:00:23.540This week, we're talking about creativity, and a very specific kind of creativity.
00:00:30.000I get asked a lot how I do what I do with three children, how I write books and make podcasts, and just how I continue to be a creative person in the world.
00:00:44.920And the honest answer, the one that I give a lot, is that I actually think my creativity blossomed when I had my kids.
00:00:55.200And this is not to say this will happen for everyone. This is just what happened to me. But I'm not only more creative, but I think I'm more efficient with my creativity. And the kinds of things that interest me are just different now.
00:01:12.300My kids help me see the world in a lot of different ways.
00:01:40.280And it's true for a lot of women that I talk to, and I want to dedicate a couple of episodes to talking through this, to talking to other women about what happened to their creativity, to their art, after they had kids.
00:01:54.300Today we're going to talk to the photographer and filmmaker Connie Ariely.
00:01:59.260In 2020, Connie noticed that a lot of mothers were posting very intimate photos of their kids online.
00:02:08.120And a lot of these pictures were things that she had never seen before, the behind-the-scenes images of motherhood that just, one, one, they tug at our heartstrings, but two, they tell the story of the strength and bravery of mothers that often isn't told.
00:02:29.660the mama gaze was so obvious to me that I couldn't believe no one had collected images in this way
00:02:36.160before. And so she started collecting them. And by 2023, the project had received more than 50,000
00:02:46.180submissions, and she featured many, many of them online. He eventually published a book called
00:02:54.020I, Mama, The Poetic Truths of Home and Motherhood. And these pictures come from 50 countries all
00:03:01.460over the world. They come from the pandemic. They come from war zones. They come from women's
00:03:08.140couches in the middle of America. They are snapshots of extraordinary life and also0.83
00:03:14.000everyday life. I love one of the photos of a woman just sitting on the floor surrounded by
00:03:22.840Legos and Duplos. I mean, she's all of us. Another one of pumped breast milk into a wine glass,
00:03:30.640because it was the only container handy to pour it into. Babies on bellies, babies with crumbs
00:03:37.040on their head. Most photos of my newborns have crumbs on their head. I think one had salami,
00:03:42.540to be honest. I was eating a sandwich, all right? And all of this blossomed on Instagram,
00:03:48.180which as we know is a platform that is not always kind to mothers and yet it is also a place where
00:03:53.560we can find community because two things can be true at the same time. Today we're going to talk
00:04:00.180about the iMama project and Mama Gaze and how this all came about at a time when the world was
00:04:05.980incredibly difficult for mothers. Okay, so hi, I'm Karni Ariely. I'm a photographer,
00:04:17.280filmmaker, mother of two boys, and I live in Bristol, UK. And I'm also the founder and
00:04:25.880curator of the iMama project, and now iMama book. We were all in lockdown, obviously,
00:04:32.900in 2020 and I was on social media a lot like everyone. I was dabbling and taking photographs
00:04:40.100of my children and that kind of made me feel a bit better about lockdown. I guess for artists
00:04:47.480it's a way for us to take a hold of reality and kind of understand things through the arts.
00:04:54.400So I was documenting my kids looking on social media and seeing other women do exactly the same
00:05:00.240So I was sort of peeping into these homes all over the world, which I guess is like the idea of social media, right?
00:05:08.500Except I was seeing content that I wasn't seeing before that was sort of fascinating to me and just incredibly powerful of these dark and light stories of motherhood and home and care.
00:05:23.600and so I just started collecting these images in a way that were interesting to me and started
00:05:32.140the Instagram platform slowly reaching out to women and asking them to be a part of it with a
00:05:38.620hashtag and before we knew it you know within a year or two we had like 60,000 submissions to the
00:05:45.740hashtag and i was curating this feed of what i and i now call the mama gaze which is uh women who
00:05:55.680identify as mothers and um also identifies photographers looking into family and home
00:06:03.240and documenting care and the light and dark of motherhood yeah and i i've been following
00:06:10.660the mama gaze from the beginning. And I have to say that even though you document the light and,
00:06:20.380as you say, the dark of motherhood, it's one of the few places on Instagram where I feel
00:06:27.260validated about motherhood because we're seeing real women doing real mothering things. And
00:06:36.240Was that your hope from the beginning?
00:06:42.180You know, the funny thing is sometimes, first of all, it sounds really weird and hippy-dippy,
00:06:49.020but I feel like in some ways it was my calling to do this because my only real talent is like my eye and my empathy, I guess, and my connection.
00:06:59.280And I felt as a mother photographer, I could identify, because I was one of them, what was really powerful in motherhood and mothers looking at themselves in a self-portrait.
00:07:14.400So I sort of went out to create the portfolio I didn't know I needed and the book I didn't know I was missing because nobody else was.
00:07:24.200And you know how it is these days. You're bombarded with imagery, but there's no low hanging fruit left. And I felt like this sort of eye farmer. Really what I was doing was just going and picking this eye fruit that I felt was ripe.
00:07:39.300and that I felt it was time to show because it's so unseen often, these narratives of like the
00:07:45.980little things and the imperfections and the humanity and the beauty and the dark undercurrent
00:07:53.020and the fear and all of this duality of care that we know exists, you know, and other people know
00:07:59.380exist but isn't shown very often and I feel that when I was looking at those images, I felt seen
00:08:06.620and I saw myself in them and it made me feel less alone and so I knew it was probably do the same
00:08:13.820for others and as the project grew I realized it did from the feedback I got and from women
00:08:19.720connecting and and so I do think it is really important to to share these sort of personal
00:08:26.540truths because we're quite tired of the depiction of motherhood as either you know one one side of
00:08:33.480is perfection. Mother Teresa, the all-giving, all-consuming, you know, beautiful mother that
00:08:40.200has no identity or personality of her own. And the other extreme is like the kind of mother
00:08:45.280covered in sick, funny TikTok videos. Ha ha ha, I'm a mess and I have no brain. And I was looking0.99
00:08:51.540for neither. I was looking for something in the middle that was the duality. You know, anything
00:08:56.680meaningful in life has a duality, you know, relationships and, you know, meaningful work. So
00:09:02.120motherhood too but I just wasn't seeing it. Talk to me about some of your favorite
00:09:10.380pictures like some of the pictures that have just stopped you in your tracks and really made you
00:09:17.160think. There's so many I mean the funny thing is I sort of fall in love with this portfolio
00:09:25.920is like a collective eye because I see it like a puzzle or a spider web of this network of eyes
00:09:33.280and hearts like all across the world because we have you know 60 countries women who are
00:09:38.360photographers from photojournalists to documentary portrait art photographers and also uh different
00:09:46.380uh sort of levels and established levels of photography so whether you know they've been
00:09:52.320exhibited or not and so I feel that in the end a powerful image it to me often is something
00:09:59.940that has a really meaningful personal story so it feels very intimate on one side but also it
00:10:08.840feels very global and human on the other side and then it's told with sort of beautiful storytelling
00:10:18.860in the sense of the artistry so it might have a beautiful beam of light or some kind of sugar
00:10:25.880coating because I feel you know we are dealing with like visual pleasure and the arts and
00:10:31.780photography I didn't want it to be off-putting because I feel like there is a responsibility
00:10:37.220and I take this project on with great responsibility to showcase it truthfully but also
00:10:44.060caringly and with empathy and you know showing the beauty of it as well that we sometimes take
00:10:48.940for granted uh in the everyday so um you know I really love this image that was shown in
00:10:55.500National Geographic actually in the newsletter um it's a picture by Julie Renee Jones she's an
00:11:02.140American eye mama and it's just this little hand peeping out from a crib and the crib is very dark
00:11:11.660and you don't really see much except for just a hand splayed open, a tiny hand splayed open in a
00:11:19.260beam of light and everything else is dark and when I saw that image within lockdown it kind of had
00:11:25.700this double meaning of this feels like humanity reaching for the light out of the dark but also
00:11:32.800it's like such a basic image of motherhood where she told me later, I didn't know her originally
00:11:38.540but she said I'd just put my baby to sleep I was tiptering away holding my breath you know as you
00:11:44.620do and I saw this hand like flick up you know they have this kind of falling instinct thing
00:11:51.300that they do and I knew she was awake and it's that joy of knowing they're awake and seeing them
00:11:57.980but also that like double take on like oh no I have to start it all again and also like all that
00:12:05.360beauty and all that power and all that love in an eddie beady crib it's kind of like the genie in
00:12:11.860aladdin all that massive power in an eddie beady like magic you know pot and it it's just that kind
00:12:21.420of that anxiety and that beauty they have to come together you know in a way and that light and that
00:12:28.800dark in emotion and in photography you really can't have one without the other and so i
00:12:35.220feel it intensifies the beauty when you showcase you know how bloody petrified we are like most of
00:12:43.380the time as well we are going to take a quick break here when we get back we're going to talk
00:12:49.120about how things look different when they're viewed through the gaze of a mother
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00:15:48.520and I've been fed the narrative by the male gaze
00:15:51.280and by commercial motherhood out there my whole life.
00:15:55.960So this is sort of the women and the mothers
00:15:59.940and the artists standing up and saying,
00:16:01.640I was here, I existed, and this is my take on reality.
00:16:05.420this is how I see it because they're owning the stories and you know around the world we have so
00:16:12.460many things that are similar because of our humanity but also different and I feel like
00:16:17.840you know if social media is like the cave walls and we're the cavemen and women then motherhood
00:16:23.640stories have to be a part of it and we have to tell them responsibly you know I'd like in a
00:16:29.700thousand years if we survive that long you know to for people to look back at the book or at the
00:16:34.740project and be like oh oh that's how motherhood was because you know in times of like pandemic
00:16:40.720or or you know illness or big historical events usually the men tell the stories the photo
00:16:46.660journalists and they were usually historically men so documentation by women and storytelling
00:16:52.100by women is is is much rarer you know it's it's also unseen in itself and then motherhood within
00:16:59.000that is like doubly unseen and then of course diversity comes in and and all the even more
00:17:05.300unseen stories like disability and you know down syndrome and non-binary and same sex and um we've
00:17:12.740got a trans dad in the book as well and um you know a beautiful uh girl on the spectrum and her
00:17:20.560mom photographs her with so much love and so much beauty and you can really feel that through the
00:17:27.020images and you know how you said you can't describe it verbally that's that's the whole
00:17:32.860point in a way like I think some things maybe just can't be said maybe they need to be felt or like
00:17:41.020uh you know told in a story that's more abstract and made of the part and by many many you know
00:17:49.440women and and caretakers and so I think that the bigger picture is like very important and
00:17:56.220all the little details are like this big puzzle that adds up to all these little moments that tell
00:18:02.640a much bigger story. Yeah, all of these moments add up to something so much bigger. I mean,
00:18:09.000every single little moment is just a mosaic of a mother's life. And when I scroll through your
00:18:16.120account, I just keep thinking about how Instagram can be such a fraught and crappy place, especially
00:18:22.200for women I mean it's a place that I actually posted some of my own breastfeeding photos0.99
00:18:27.800and they were banned from Instagram because there was the slightest hint of nipple of mama nipple0.94
00:18:33.840and I just because it can be such a terrible place I wanted to know a little bit more about
00:18:40.320why you chose this place and and how how the platform has informed or changed the project
00:18:47.820yeah well you know I had to first of all this is the first platform I ever curated so
00:18:54.580I'm not the same person as the person who started out with this project I've changed
00:19:01.280and evolved and I think I had to give myself permission to make the project flexible and
00:19:07.900reflect what it was I thought it needed to be and in a way it told me what it needed to be by the
00:19:14.820images that came in through the submissions and by the stories that were being told and that needed
00:19:19.740to be told and women reaching out through DMs and what happened was I think it's a very female
00:19:25.220tendency and maybe a motherhood tendency to sort of be more flexible and kind of improvise and work
00:19:33.920with what you have and these these images I tried not to show women with masks necessarily or you
00:19:41.160you know, the pandemic per se with like the masks and because this was more about looking
00:19:46.160introspectively, you know, and that's really tough. And that goes for any tougher circumstances. So,
00:19:52.560you know, in the West, it's tough to be a mom and to be a working mom. We don't get enough
00:19:59.200paid leave and there's abortion rights and there's equal pay and there's safety in maternity. And0.99
00:20:07.100There's so many issues, but I feel that when you talk about third world countries or in South America, you know, and in wartime, the stories I was hearing was so much more intense.
00:20:17.880And that's layered upon the regular hardships of caring for little beings, you know, who are essentially helpless while trying to make an income, while trying to stay sane, while being up at night, while being undervalued, while trying to keep your career going.
00:20:36.380and your sense of self and your family and so many things that you have to float at once I mean
00:20:42.580you know you and me know and so many other women so it was a big eye-opener for me and it made me
00:20:50.040feel a lot more connected to women around the world in general but also realize how similar
00:20:55.340we were and how to really change things I think we probably have to work with elevating each other
00:21:01.860and helping each other be seen and really supporting each other's projects to elevate
00:21:08.640and empower motherhood and mother's rights and women's rights you know in whatever way we can
00:21:15.500you know we've got a big following of women and a big supportive community so I feel quite held0.83
00:21:23.960and really took a lot of strength on this journey from the iMamas themselves.0.81
00:21:30.500So it's like this organism where I'm giving them visibility for their work,
00:21:35.880but they're giving me power and feedback and strength through saying how much this is needed,
00:21:42.300how much this is giving them, how they found this or that person, how it's meaningful.
00:21:47.280And, you know, so we empower each other in a way very equally.
00:21:52.320And the problem with social media is obviously that with the bots and with the way that it's kind of configured is that a lot of breastfeeding images were removed.
00:22:03.860And at some point, the whole of iMama project was even removed from Instagram.
00:22:10.580So, you know, then I started curating carefully, which is also tricky because you don't want to have to be careful about showing breastfeeding because that's part of the point.
00:22:20.380Like if you saw more breastfeeding, it would be less of a taboo.
00:22:23.860Women would feel better and more at home with it.
00:22:26.560And then it would just be more natural and part of everyday life.
00:22:30.740And, you know, so many people, like when they see the book or the platform, they're like, oh, is it for mothers by mothers for mothers?
00:22:37.020And I'm like, well, actually, no, because do you have a mother?