Shweta Bist

Welcome. This week my guest is Shweta Bist, a photographer currently based in New York City, USA, and a mother of 2 girls.

Shweta was born in New Dehli in India. Both her parents were artistic but put it aside to work. Shweta painted a lot, drew, sang, was in the theatre, acted and danced. Art was an outlet for her even as a child, spending time doing oil canvasses . Art was a way for her to find solace and process things that weren't going right for her as a teenager

In 2007 Shweta moved to Dubai with her husband and lived there until 2013 when she moved to New York with her young family. It was during this time of being a new mother that her interest and enjoyment from photography came to light.

As her experiences with photography developed, Shweta found that the pictures became more art-like, and began to reflect her inner thoughts and feelings, more so than doing work for others.

While drawing attention to her maternal identity and the intimate relationship she shares with her daughters, Shweta stages conceptual photographs to draw attention to the emotional labour of mothering, highlighting maternal love and the reciprocity of mothering between mother and child. Her endeavour is to create images that urge the viewer to contemplate the complexities of the maternal experience in its ambivalent entirety, and to contribute to a narrative about the lives of women and their children, told from their perspectives.

This episode contains discussions around anxiety and depression

The COVID Family Portrait ©️2021 Shweta Bist

Motherhouse ©️2021 Shweta Bist

Caught in Single Use - from the Plastic Series ©️2021 Shweta Bist

Shwetas article in The Lockdown Mothers

Spilt Milk Gallery / Great Pacific Garbage Patch / Andrea O'Reilly

Susan Maushart - The Mask of Motherhood

The Divided Heart - Art and Motherhood by Rachel Power

Rachel's Art of Being the Mum podcast interview / The Museum of Motherhood

Connect with Shweta

Connect with the podcast

Music heard today is from Australian new age trio Alemjo, and is used with permission.

When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for guests' inaccuracies.