Nikki Davidson-Bowman

In parallel to lockdown, pandemic fears and having my quiet home filled with my furloughed partner & my grown up daughter moving home (from London) when she got furloughed, my mother's health was deteriorating. I was trying to get answers about her symptoms long before lockdown with no success. 

Having my daughter back home was an unexpected joy - mother & daughter time like never before.  She got a new job and moved back to London. 

A week after my daughter left, my mother fell in her home, broke her arm and had to move in with us. Her condition continued to deteriorate and I became the mother to my mother.  In September 2020, after proactively pestering medical specialists, while my mother passively let things just be, a diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease and cognitive dysfunction was made. Life changed beyond all recognition.  As mother and daughter we have always had a strong nurturing link for each other. Through highs & lows we have always supported each. Times of joy & memories shared, sad times and tough life changes. Two independent women sharing days, or at most a week together at a time with clear boundaries, were thrown together indefinitely.

Our lives are now entwined so much that we’ve both lost where we came from. Physically together more than ever but mentally or internally, further apart. A grown up child and her mother. Mother and daughter. Mother’s and their daughters. These are complex relationships. The role reversal. The dependency. The role of a primary carer and decision maker for someone that I had always turned to for support myself. My mental health suffered. Something about being a carer now has highlighted how invisible we/they are. The family carer. Giving to another erodes your sense of self. What your own life was or could be.

As an artist, time for myself was almost none existent. In April 2021, I forced myself back into my studio and started making small works in response to this 'unprecedented' situation – my mother’s diagnosis of MND/ALS & cognitive dysfunction & my role of carer, daughter, wife, artist, researcher, mother & sister during lockdown.

Previous
Previous

Rachel Hawthorn

Next
Next

Louise Murphy