ARTIST STATEMENT
“Inconceivable Motherhood” is an unpublished self-portrait series that examines the unspoken mental, biological, and financial pressures of involuntary childlessness. As someone who always assumed motherhood was part of my future, the reality of never becoming a parent reshaped my identity and relationship with the world. Over a decade of unsuccessful attempts to become a mother forced me to confront not only personal grief but also societal expectations and biases that silence this experience. Each photograph in the series embodies a different aspect of my journey—the weight of societal pressure and the limited biological time to procreate, the mental and financial toll of fertility treatments, and the shifting sense of identity in the absence of motherhood. I translate these invisible struggles into tangible, evocative visuals using a trapezium-shaped grey claustrophobic room, props and costumes. Creating this series is both a personal catharsis and an act of advocacy. As society continues to uphold pronatalist ideals and place taboos on childlessness, these images serve as a call for more inclusive policies, nuanced media representation, and open conversations. Inconceivable Motherhood aims to validate the experiences of the unseen and unheard, fostering a more compassionate and accepting world.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Nika Belianina is a Moscow-raised, Toronto-based fine art photographer and a filmmaker who specializes in magical realism and self-portraiture. In a 15 year-long photography career she participated in over 30 exhibitions across Canada, USA, Peru and Belgium. Among them are Contact Photography festival, School of Fine Arts in Lima, Toronto Outdoor Art Fair (where she sold 15 of her works in the first year) and a solo exhibit at Abbozzo gallery. Nika served as a visual arts juror for the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (Wyoming) and created work at the artists residencies in the USA, Mexico and Peru. She is a recipient of several awards and honorable mentions, such as the Julia Margaret Cameron Award, Head On Photo Festival (Australia), Gallery Photographica and New York Center for Photographic Art.
© Nika Belianina