Motherhood Art Assignment Generator

Custom Javascript software, custom shower curtain (75” x 75”), custom oversized plush dice set (20” x 20” x 20”), 2024

Description

Upon becoming a mother, I found it hard to make art the way I knew before. The rhythm of everything changed. There were no long chunks of time, only small pockets. There was no going away to residencies for intense spouts of concentrated work. There was a child who wanted to be so close to me that he would rather sit on my lap as I pee in the toilet than be alone. 

It was around this time that I began fantasizing about making systems that made art for me. One result of this was the Motherhood Art Assignment Generator (https://editor.p5js.org/lberdugo/full/FX5S8t4tL) — an algorithm I coded that generated prompts for art assignments about motherhood, some 100,000 by permutation. This work is one part provocation, one part inspiration, and one part a work in and of itself, Fluxus-style.

The digital Motherhood Art Assignment Generator finds its physical form in two tactile, domestic objects. The oversized plush dice offer a playful, hands-on interface: one die presents a medium for an artistic work— video, assemblage, sculpture, etc. — while the other offers a subject rooted in the lived experience of parenthood: the distance you can be from your child, your post-child body, breast pump parts,etc.. A roll of the dice together produces an instant art assignment: “make a video about the distance you can be from your child.”

The shower curtain extends this logic into domestic space. Text-covered and floor-length, it displays a selection of the algorithm's generated prompts, transforming a mundane bathroom fixture into a site of creative provocation. The choice of object is deliberate: the shower is one of the few spaces where a mother might find herself briefly, blissfully alone, making it a rare and fertile ground for thought.

Together, the objects honor the ingenuity required to sustain an artistic practice amid the beautiful, consuming chaos of early motherhood.

Exhibitions

• “Wayfinders: the Art + Architecture Faculty Triennial”, Thacher Gallery, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA. Mar 2 - April 12-2026.

• “M(other)ing,” Perspective Gallery, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. Mar 18 - May 16, 2025.

• “Phygital Care,” Root Division Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Dec 12, 2024 - Jan 5, 2025.

Residencies + Grants that supported this work

• Faculty Development Fund, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, 2023.

• VR Art Camp Artist Residency, online, 2021.