Exhibiting Project
M.O.M
Maternal Order of Makers (M.O.M.) is a speculative union and visual language that reframes caregiving and creative labor as collective, political work. Presented as part of Radical Americana and aligned with Philadelphia’s 250th-anniversary programming, the project situates feminized and reproductive labor within the broader history of American labor organizing and nation-building. Rooted in Philadelphia—often framed as the birthplace of the nation—M.O.M. draws a parallel between women’s bodies as literal sites of birth and the metaphorical language of “founding,” exposing how narratives of origin have centered male authorship while obscuring the labor that produces and sustains life.
Visually, M.O.M. adopts the graphic language of labor unions—patches, insignia, uniforms, and emblems—to assert solidarity, protection, and collective force. These forms function as both historical reference and speculative proposal, inserting caregiving and reproductive labor into
iconography traditionally reserved for industrial and masculine work.
The project is presented alongside a series of American flags composed of images of pregnancy test strips—contemporary tools of reproductive labor that mark the threshold between private bodily experience and public consequence. In dialogue with the Betsy Ross narrative, these works connect early textile labor to present-day reproductive technologies and legislation,
foregrounding how bodies, labor, and rights are continually monitored, contested, and controlled. As part of Philadelphia’s Centennial celebrations, M.O.M. reframes “founding” as an ongoing process shaped by reproductive politics, insisting that the histories we commemorate must confront the conditions under which life is produced, governed, and sustained.
