On View: April 5 - May 5 | Opening: April 5th, 7-10pm
You Are: Mother, Player is a solo exhibition centered around Angela Washko's newly completed project, Mother, Player, an experimental narrative video game featuring pregnancy and early parenthood stories from the artist (made during the global pandemic). Set within a backdrop of the tense 2020 United States election and a terrifying new international health crisis, players explore the maternal healthcare industry and parenting culture as a burnt out pansexual artist who has decided to have a child despite an increasingly discouraging geopolitical climate that deprioritizes and devalues care. The game addresses the lack of multi-dimensional pregnancy and early parenthood stories in video games—something that the artist-game developer herself became sensitive to and critical of after becoming pregnant, giving birth, and taking care of a newborn during this isolated and uncertain time. All of the interfaces, animations, fonts, buttons, dialogue boxes, and icons have been hand drawn and animated by the artist, as part of a commitment to building a poetic, soft, labor-intensive, and complex game-world reflective of the childcare experiences she and the other artist parents have had during the pandemic. The exhibition situates the viewer into the expanded world of the game - presenting a new wallpaper installation made with the artist's daughter's paintings, a framed selection of hand-drawn frames of animation laboriously produced during the artist's daughters naps, and the interactive game experience itself.
Message from PWA:
PWA is thrilled to present its first-ever exhibition focused on a video game. Titled "You are: Mother Player," the exhibition is an immersive installation that showcases Washko's game, Mother, Player, and her intricate hand-drawn interfaces. This is the first time Washko has released the game in this installation format. By adding personal touches like hand-drawn pictures, Mother, Player brings a special sense of closeness and connection to the artist. As noted in the artist statement above, thematically, both the game and the drawings shed light on the often overlooked aspects of pregnancy and motherhood, storylines rarely explored in video games. Through exhibiting "You Are: Mother, Player," PWA aims to amplify diverse voices in the gaming community. Washko's perspective challenges the male-dominated status quo, making this exhibition a powerful statement about the changing landscape of gaming and contemporary art.
Fundamentally, Mother, Player beautifully illustrates an example of how we navigate life's complex systems, blending the ordinary with the sublime.
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Grant support for Mother, Player’s development comes from Creative Capital, a nonprofit organization funding new, creative work across a variety of arts technologies and practices. Additional funding and support for Mother, Player came from the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry.