one-to-one performance, duration: 3 hours
Highlight Gallery, Singapore. 2024
The archetypal figure of the Triple Goddess - shared across many mythologies - represents the Maiden (pubescent girl), the Mother (woman in fertile years), and the Crone (post-menopausal woman). In cultures that value youth, maidens and mothers are revered - while crones are invisible at best and reviled at worst. In more traditional societies, however, the old woman continues to holds power and prestige as healer, midwife, and wisewoman upon whom her community depends for survival.
My mother is one such wisewoman, and with my daughter at the cusp of puberty, it seemed apt for us three to represent the Triple Goddess – drawing from our embodied experiences in the Crone, Mother, and Maiden stages of female life.
Adapting the format of The Human Library, my mother, myself, and my daughter offer ourselves as human books. Participants were invited to sit with us as “readers” – one at a time – and offered a menu of questions they may pose to us, relating to our particular life stage.
photos by: Kelly Janine, courtesy of AGAS Singapore Gallery Month.