In a recent exhibition, I showed a series of works titled Motherhood: Sweet, Sour, and Strong, inspired by the West African song Sweet Mother I first heard as a little girl. The song celebrates both the joys and the hardships of motherhood. That duality — its sweetness and its struggles — became the heart of this body of work.
I designed a collection of fabrics using fruit as recurring motifs, each carrying symbolic meaning: pineapple for sweetness, lemon for sourness, and orange for strength and resilience. Throughout the fabrics, I weave the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol Obaa Tan Pa, which represents the “good mother.”
Motherhood: who, truly, is a good mother? If society views motherhood one way from the outside, how do mothers themselves define what it means to be good? From my own experience as a mother, I’ve come to understand that sacrifice alone is not the only way most mothers would like to live their lives. Mothers need rest, gentleness, and the freedom to be fully human.