Screen Projects: Lenka Clayton

Still image from video by Lenka Clayton. A child with red clothing stands in a driveway next to a trailer and truck and trees.

Lenka Clayton, The Distance I can Be From My Son (Back Alley), 2013. Video still. 

Dates

June 12–September 5, 2017

Location

Artist List

Lenka Clayton

Description

The Distance I can Be From My Son (Park), 2013

The Distance I can Be From My Son (Back Alley), 2013

The Distance I can Be From My Son (Supermarket), 2013

Lenka Clayton is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on the realities and absurdities of everyday life. She is the founder of An Artist Residency in Motherhood, which is a self-directed, open-source artist residency to empower and inspire artists who are also mothers. In this series of videos created while participating in the Artist Residency in Motherhood, Clayton attempts to objectively measure the distance she can be from her young son in three different situations—a city park, a back alley and a supermarket. At the park, almost a minute and a half elapses of her son toddling farther away before Clayton jogs after him. He makes it 55.8 yards. In the alley, he is 45.9 yards from her before she runs after him and in the supermarket, he is down the aisle and around the corner when she appears—only 18.6 yards. The humor of this small child bobbling away from his mother is mixed with anxiety when he gets far away or out of sight. While the videos might pull at the viewer’s heartstrings, it also speaks to Clayton’s manifesto for An Artist Residency in Motherhood, allowing motherhood to shape the direction of her work, rather than try to work “despite it.” [1]

 

 

 

 

[1] Lenka Clayton. Manifesto for An Artist Residency in Motherhood. http://www.artistresidencyinmotherhood.com/how-it-started/"