The art show that a sleep-deprived new parent can visit at 3 a.m. from their phone

Shortly after Rea McNamara became a mom, the curator was invited to create a digital exhibition for Regina's MacKenzie Art Gallery. Like most new parents, McNamara often found herself awake in the middle of the night caring for her newborn while simultaneously scrolling on her phone, searching for answers and support. 

Sometimes, it was during these irregular, bleary-eyed office hours that she'd also fit the smaller work tasks of an independent curator and writer. 

And it was in these sleepless, overtaxed moments, too, that she found the subject of her show.

Featuring major and emerging talents in digital art from Canada and abroad, Wake Windows: The Witching Hour examines the invisible labour of mothers. The exhibition gives space to the little-talked-about, the overlooked and the unrecorded when it comes to the experience of rearing children.

"We are quite dismissive as a society of the work that goes into taking care of a young child," the curator says.

Developed alongside the MacKenzie's Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll, the mobile-friendly interactive exhibition can be accessed freely through an internet browser. The experience has been designed to facilitate both long and short visits, so viewers can enjoy the artwork as their time allows and return later to continue the exhibition.

"I [wanted] to do a show that a sleep-deprived new parent who's stuck under a sleeping baby at 3 a.m. could check out," the curator says.

Wake Windows takes the form of a text-based choose-your-own-adventure game. Visitors play the role of a curator's friend who's agreed to review an exhibition proposal. You arrive to find your friend is stranded upstairs with their napping newborn, but they've left the relevant files open on their laptop for your attention. That's when you meet the baby's AI companion, a Clippy-like character named Edgar, who guides you through the exhibition folders with excerpts from the curator's research as well as reflections on their own upbringing, so to speak. 

More artifice than autobiography, McNamara says the curator-mom who's training an AI nanny is intended as a comical caricature of who she was as a brand new mother. "It satirizes the type of parent who's looking at too many Instagram ads, who's in the WhatsApp parent groups, who's telling you, 'Oh, well, we're doing this' or 'We've signed up for that.' Like that really overeager [person], just so overwhelmed by information that they don't know which end is up."

While it may poke fun at the quagmire of data and technology parents trudge through, the exhibition — a digital one, happening on your phone screen — is hardly cynical on the subject. Instead, it largely explores the ways parents and children can creatively engage technology. 

The artwork of Wake Windows examines a vast range of experiences, expressions and issues on the topic of mothering. An experimental documentary by the American multimedia artist Lauren Lee McCarthy, for instance, explores surrogacy and bodily autonomy. Wednesday Kim's 3D animation Sleep Deprived Workers presents a traversable mindscape drawn from the bleakness of postpartum depression. And the Kanien'kehá:ka artist Skawennati — who McNamara calls "the O.G. of doing machinima" — retells the Haudenosaunee creation story of Sky Woman, the first mother, in the virtual world Second Life. 

In a 360 VR video, Detroit-based artist Rory Scott has lovingly recreated her grandmother's living room by stitching together panoramic photographs. With its cut crystal candy dishes, ornate lamps and gilt frames, Scott looks to capture some of the enchantment this particular space — and her memories of the woman who lived there — represent to her. 

"I adored the magic that she brought into my life," the artist says. "There are these people that exist who give you something of guidance, they give you something extra — a spark — and it does completely affect your upbringing." 

The work is a tender example, McNamara says, of the powerful impact of "othermothers," or the women who provide care for children not their own.

In another folder, you'll find a series of gifs and digital animations by the Toronto-based artist Alejandra Higuera in collaboration with her daughter, Magnolia. Their project began during the pandemic, when the pair were stuck inside their 17th-floor apartment and found a positive outlet in the activities of drawing together and filming one another. 

"The work came out of the realization that my kid loves playing; it's her favourite way of connecting and learning," Higuera explains. "And I'm learning how to play myself, because it's something that's really hard for me as an adult." 

In one video, a group of abstract figures made from colourful yarn dances against a dark backdrop. Their movements seem to happen magically, until it's revealed that the mother and daughter are together choreographing the action. The work encapsulates the whole spirit of their project, suggesting that, like artistic collaboration, co-learning and mutual play are crucial to the relationship of children and parents.

"I'm showing a part of mothering, which is that I'm not just teaching my kid or guiding her in this world, but she's also a teacher," Higuera says. "And I believe kids have a lot to teach us." 

While the exhibition focuses on the experiences of mothering, it was never intended for parents alone. Moreover, Wake Windows is about the work of care, which is something everyone will have experience with in their lifetime. It is McNamara's hope that audiences come away with a better understanding of this particular kind of labour, she says, "and how it totally reshapes people."