Double or nothing. A duet on mothering and artistic research

Abstract This essay presents itself as a doubling, a polyphonous autotheoretical reflection on the interaction between motherhood and research in the arts. A singer and a graphic designer meet at a doctoral defence and find themselves simultaneously heavily pregnant during the finalization of their own doctoral research. After giving birth, Eva (the graphic designer) encounters obstacles in her return to reading and writing – practices through which she had previously oriented her research-oriented design practice. The need to reach out brings her to write Mariske (the singer) a letter. In this written duet, consisting of two letters, they bend themselves over the shattered efforts to rhyme with a new-born baby. How to compose and recompose oneself postpartum when writing has halted due to the fragmentation of thoughts and time? In the first letter, Eva Moulaert reflects on how motherhood halted her reading practice and deferred her design-oriented research into the sensory aspects of reading and the ways these shape aesthetic experience. In response Mariske Broeckmeyer, a singer researching the subversive potential of a failing voice, lends an ear to the impact of motherhood on vocality. For both, these writings enable a return to their practice, although in an altered shape and shade.