Six photographers portray what they have come up with for their mothers tomorrow on Mother’s Day.
Hans van Asch (59)
‘My mother was a forceful woman, very spoiled too. I always had to bring her a hard-boiled egg to bed. For me that was something wry, because I hated that. The coagulated protein of this egg resembles my mother’s wigs. The shape of the egg cup resembles her wide hips. I’ve realistically traced her mouth and her eyes from a photo. She had really ugly teeth. The image has a bit of a nasty look to it and that’s a good thing. Revenge is a big word, but it has become a cartoon.’
Jouk Oosterhof (49)
‘My mother passed away when I was 15. Coincidentally, I’ve been working intensively with her archive lately. As an activist artist, she paid a lot of attention to her work. She wove rugs, made graphic posters, drawings, paintings and screen printed curtains. In this woven Mother’s Day craft, I thought curtains from her own work were in place. In my own work I also use a lot of curtains – they have a magnetic attraction to me. Maybe no coincidence. I received the text in the handiwork ten years ago on Mother’s Day from my own daughter. Only the essence is legible: ‘Dear mama’. The picture of my mother with me on her lap is from the book: Girl, I’ve become so aware: five years of Dolle Mina and belongs to Eva Besnyö. The curtain of clouds, which makes her anonymous, I thought was fitting for her absence. I’d like to talk to her again.’
Xiaoxiao Xu (38)
‘I was born in Qingtian, a region in southeastern China. In the 1990s, my mother traveled to the West in search of a better life. She wanted to build a new life in the Netherlands. Since my mother was gone, I grew up with my aunt. Seven years after my mother arrived in the Netherlands, my aunt put me on a plane to follow in her footsteps. I didn’t manage to settle into my new life until I came into contact with photography. I took this photo when I returned to the place where I grew up for the first time in seven years. I was struck by the mature and calm look of the child, the way she is wrapped in several layers of clothing and the fact that her mother has just bought her balloons. All these things speak love.’
Aisha Zeijpveld (40)
‘I can’t remember the last time I did something for my mother on Mother’s Day. With these photos I hope to make amends for the past forty years. I went online looking for images and then I noticed that many Mother’s Day crafts by small children are handicrafts – cut out, glued or stamped – in combination with plants. I took that as the starting point for this adult version for my own mother. I’ve been a mother myself for ten years now, and yet I don’t think I can ever do as well as she does.’
Noël Loozen (40)
‘I think the concept of Mother’s Day is very kitsch. Many Mother’s Day decorations also look the same, very uniform. I thought it would be fun to go over the top. These pictures are a surprise to my mother, she doesn’t know she’s in this Magazine. My brother and I drove to my mother’s house with a car full of balloons and decorations. As an excuse we made up that I was making a short film about a failed loverboy starring my brother. My mother believed that and I think that is typical of our relationship with our mother: we like to play tricks on her. I pretended to take pictures of my brother and then asked her if she wanted to come outside for a moment. She’s used to us messing around, so it wasn’t even hard.’
Jaap Scheeren (40)
‘My mother is a very sweet and open person. She never immediately agrees with me, but questions my beliefs until I get to the core. Holidays were always fun at our house, but never mandatory. She used to hate that herself. I made a self-portrait, on which I’m dressed as the breakfast I never made or brought. My little self, my son Bouwe Pret, is my tough, persistent model. I hope people cut out the work and stick a passport photo of their own child on it. They can then give it to their own mother as a card.’