Photo credit: Alice Horsley
With Caregiving & Creativity in mind, we speak with YARA + DAVINA, the socially engaged artist duo reimagining what it means to be mothers and makers – challenging outdated narratives, embracing job-sharing as a radical act, and creating joyful, public-facing work with care at its core.
When YARA + DAVINA became mothers within a month of each other, they didn’t step back from their practice – they stepped forward together. The socially engaged artist duo began collaborating as a job share, determined to remain visible in an industry that too often sidelines mothers.
Their work – which spans everything from poetry to bronze public sculptures – is rooted in play, accessibility and political intent, often exploring themes of care, identity, and who art is really for. In this candid Q&A, they reflect on making time (and peace) with imperfection, the pressures of doing it all, and why motherhood has only deepened their creative drive.
How has motherhood influenced your creative process or career choices?
Brian Sewel, the art critic, said in 2008 that “Female artists fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it’s something to do with bearing children”.
Yes, motherhood has had a profound influence on our career choices. We became a duo after becoming mothers, and we had a deep wellspring of desire to nurture our babies and also nurture our art practice, not letting it fade away.
Being a mum gave us a wider range of being and a deeper depth of what it means to be human. It filled us with more ideas, not less… we had more determination and more creative ideas than ever.
In 2016, our hack on motherhood was to start collaborating as a duo as a ‘job share’. We had been friends and admirers of each other’s work for 11 years prior, and both of us became parents within a month of each other. We realised we both wanted to be present mothers but also visible artists. We literally started working together so we could work part-time but have a full-time practice between us.
We are driven to make powerful, playful and fun contemporary art, alongside being mothers, to challenge ideas like Tracy Emin, who said, “There are good artists that have children. They are called men.” We are good artists, and we are not only women; we are mothers!
What’s been the biggest challenge in balancing creativity and caregiving?
Time and some guilt! Quite literally, there is little time to parent and make art. But we were both determined to be part-time mums, part-time artists and full-time friends. This duo works because we both understand the limitations of our free time: we are always there to step up when the other needs a break, has sick children, or craves space for ourselves. It was almost like an intuitive dance, where we had become in tune with each other’s outside demands and rhythm.
As artists, we often have to travel extensively for work, which can put considerable pressure on our partners and be unsettling for our children. So guilt slips in every now and then. Luckily, we both support each other in those times and remind each other that to parent and care for others effectively, it is essential that we make time for our art practice and thus ourselves. With time, we hope our children will respect and understand the role art played in our lives and why we had to find a balance that worked for us as creative beings.
We work together every weekday, and we always find ourselves talking and supporting each other with our parenting alongside making work. We both deeply feel that we were put on this planet to create great art, to push the boundaries of what art is and can be, and with whom it can be made and for whom it can be made. And we can do this while raising children.
Have you felt pressure to ‘do it all,’ and how do you navigate that?
Yes, we feel it all the time, from ourselves as much as from society! One of our mottos that we tell ourselves is ‘Good Enough’. We have talked about getting these as matching tattoos ( we love to wear matching outfits).
Essentially, it is impossible to do everything really well. We need to prioritise what things need to be brilliant and what things can just be good enough. These priorities shift daily, creating an interplay between our personal and professional lives. Being a duo allows us to pick up each other’s slack when needed.
Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning
What changes would you like to see in the creative industry to better support mothers?
In 2016, we participated in a British Council residency at Portland State University titled ‘Motherhood: A Social Practice’. We explored motherhood in the creative world, and our passion was to create more family-focused residencies and secure funding to support childcare. We wanted programmers to consider simple things, such as family-accessible residences, and work around term times. Things have dramatically changed since then, but we need to see more changes. People like Lizzie Humber and her daylight collective are doing amazing things, thinking about programming parent-accessible daytime culture.
When we live in a time where Evening Standard art critic Brian Sewell said things like, “Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness.”, women, in general, have a tough time, never mind mums! We are passionate not only about supporting artist mothers but also about working with and for mothers.
Our public artwork, WOMAN – WHOLE, was created alongside, with, and for mothers on Regents Park Estate, as part of The Story Trail commissioned by Old Diorama Arts Centre. We subverted the idea of manholes, creating a series of bronze-cast covers embedded in the pavements of Camden. These permanent public artworks playfully remind us that, as women, we are whole.
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