MOTHERS
This is not a play about motherhood. It is a play about deciding on motherhood.
Now in their mid-thirties, the Igralke Collective authors feel that time is running out on their decision about motherhood. They are the first generation of women in their families who truly have the freedom of choice: unlike their grandmothers, they are financially independent, so motherhood is no longer the given it was for their mothers. Setting out from personal experience, the creators explored the issue of motherhood in the fields of art, theory, and history. However, by far the most valuable source material was found in the interviews conducted with women who responded to an open call for the project.
The perspectives of mothers, women who decided not to have children, women who cannot have children and those as yet undecided proved that the topic of deciding on motherhood is vast, difficult to encompass, and timeless. This is why the authors decided it deserves not only a performance, but also a museum. As long as there is no such permanent museum, this performance will use the mediums of expression, movement, music, and visual art to conjure an imaginary museum of (non)motherhood made of oftentimes invisible experiences and stories that are at the same time intimate, social, and mythical.
Our museum has floating roots. Right now it is here, in front of the Ethnographic Museum of the Brijuni National Park, but once the lights go off, it moves. It travels through women’s bodies and appears when they need it most. We needed it. And when we did, it revealed itself.
You will wander. You will get lost. Years might pass before you leave again. Here, time is thick and viscous. The days are long, but years fly by. Shall we go?
Following the performances Grandmas and Girls (directed by Tjaša Črnigoj), the Igralke Collective’s performance Mothers concludes a unique women’s trilogy. The collective joined forces with the director and author Rajna Racz, a young mother herself, and transformed the theatre into a space for creation and gentle co-existence with a child. The stage became a place for the Igralke Collective to confront their fears and hopes, as well as the traditional and modern notions and demands placed on women, artists, and mothers. At the same time, it became a space of freedom (of choice).
We would like to thank the women who responded to our open call and the students of the Department of Cultural Studies, as well as their supervisor, Assistant Dunja Matić Benčić, for conducting the interviews.
- a Documentary Performance
Concept: The Igralke Collective and Rajna Racz
Director: Rajna Racz
Text: Sendi Bakotić, Ana Marija Brđanović, Maja Ležaić, Rajna Racz, Anja Sabol, Vanda Velagić
Creators and performers: Sendi Bakotić, Ana Marija Brđanović, Anja Sabol, Vanda Velagić
Alternation: Klara Kovačić
Dramaturgy: Maja Ležaić
Movement consultant: Mila Čuljak
Stage and costume design: Paola Lugarić Benzia, Tanja Blašković
Music and sound design: Marin Živković
Lighting design and technical director: Marin Lukanović
Visual design: Oleg Morović
The interviews were conducted by the students at the Department of Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka: Mia Lukić, Lara Krsmanović, Hana Krsmanović, Lisa Ivanić, Ivana Gubo, Aurora Vivoda, Nina Blažević, Dorotea Zwingl Mikler, and Tara Savić. They were supervised by Dunja Matić Benčić.
Co-produced by: Igralke Collective (CRO); House Nahero (CRO); Ulysses Theatre (CRO); Maska Ljubljana (SLO).
In partnership with: the Croatian National Theatre Ivan Pl. Zajc in Rijeka (CRO); the Academy of Applied Arts Rijeka (CRO); Youth Centre Ribnjak (CRO); the Maksimir Centre for Culture and Information Zagreb (CRO).
Co-financed by: the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Zagreb, the City of Rijeka, the Primorje–Gorski Kotar County, the Kultura Nova Foundation, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the City of Ljubljana.
The Ulysses Theatre is supported by: the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Pula, the Region of Istria, Brijuni National Park, the Croatian Tourism Association, and sponsors.
Premiere:
11. 7. 2025 ( Ulysses theatre, Brioni, Hrvaška)
19. 9. 2025 (SMEEL, Maska Ljubljana – as part of the International Festival of Contemporary Arts City of Women)
THE IGRALKE COLLECTIVE
The Igralke Collective was founded by four friends, graduates of Acting and Media at the Academy of Applied Arts in Rijeka under the tutorship of Rade Šerbedžija and Lenka Udovički: Sendi Bakotić, Ana Marija Brđanović, Anja Sabol, and Vanda Velagić. The four actors also hold degrees in social anthropology, cultural management, comparative literature, the Russian language, and logopedics. They have been working as independent authors and producers since 2019.
They received international recognition for three productions directed by Tjaša Črnigoj: Grandmas (2020), which was featured in one of the largest European theatre festivals, the Berlin Theatertreffen-Stückemarkt; the award-winning production Sex Education II: Fight (produced by the New Post Office and City of Women); and Girls (produced by the Croatian National Theatre Ivan Pl. Zajc in Rijeka and the VIDNE association), which was awarded several regional prizes and was featured in the Marulić Days Festival and the renowned Berlin theatre, HAU Hebbel am Ufer. Fight was also featured in the Week of Slovenian Drama, the Borštnik Meeting, and the Bitef Festival in Belgrade, where it received special recognition.
In 2023, Black Wool (2022), a documentary performance co-authored with the users of the Association for the Homeless and Socially Vulnerable Persons Oaza, director Olja Lozica, and composer Damir Urban, was nominated for the Baščovjek award for humanism in theatre.
RAJNA RACZ
Rajna Racz graduated in Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Arts in Zagreb and in Theatre and Radio Directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Currently, she is completing her postgraduate study crossing the fields of literature, theatre, drama, film, music and cultural studies. She worked as an assistant director in numerous productions (among them with directors Matija Ferlan, Anica Tomić, Jernej Lorenci, Ivica Buljan, and Lenka Udovički); in recent years, she has been developing her directorial poetics by directing, producing, and working as a dramaturge in various productions and projects, and in the field of poetry (poetry collection Djevojka-zarez [Girl Comma], journalism (ELLE), and academia.
In 2024, the Marulić Days Festival awarded her the Marul Award for her artistic achievements in adapting and performing Symphony/Turpitude (produced by Eurokaz in cooperation with the Serbian National Council in Croatia and the Croatian Engineering Association). Her recent notable projects include the musical performance Ptice špijuni (Bird Spies) (2025); Predstava koju želimo gledati (A Performance We Would Like to See) (2024), co-produced by House Nahero, Emporia, and Aplauz Theatres; F. G. Lorca’s Yerma (2003), adapted and directed for the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka; Bit će strašno kad porastem (Growing Up Will Be Horrible) (2023), directed based on the text by Olje Savičević Ivančević at the Dubrava Theatre; and Stranger from the Seine (2020), by the author Ödön von Horváth, which she is directing together with the music band Porto Morto at Theater &TD.
In 2021, she founded the artistic association Kuća Nahero (meaning “house askew”) together with Marin Živković and Tara Beata Racz.
The (Non)Mothers Book Club
The (Non)Mothers Book Club is part of the artistic research for the new documentary performance “Mothers” by Kolektiv Igralke and Rajna Racz, which explores women’s decision regarding motherhood. The premiere of Mothers will take place in July 2025 as part of Ulysses Theatre. Alongside Ulysses and Igralke, the co-producers of the performance are UO Kuća Nahero from Zagreb and Zavod Maska from Ljubljana. The artistic research is co-financed by the City of Zagreb, while the work of Igralke and Kuća Nahero is supported by the Kultura Nova Foundation.
Mother and/or Feminist?
- Lecture/ gathering
- May 27th at 5.30 PM (Zoom)
Balancing Motherhood and Professional Art
- Lecture/ gathering
- March 31st at 5 PM (Zoom)
Balancing motherhood with work in the professional art field is a complex and deeply personal challenge. There is no universal solution, as each artist’s experience is shaped by cultural, social, and economic factors. However, by sharing stories and perspectives, we can gain valuable insights, challenge existing structures, and reflect on how motherhood and artistic practice intersect.
Lucija Lunder from Slovenia, who has been researching this topic for the past two years, will share insights from her master’s thesis and independent research based on interviews with artists from various disciplines in Slovenia, Lithuania, and beyond. Her thesis examines maternity leave during the socialist period in Slovenia and its impact on female visual artists, based on interviews with those who had children between 1945 and 1991.
In the summer of 2024, in collaboration with Kaunas Artists’ House in Lithuania, she curated the project “Artist-Mothers: Balancing Professional Art and Motherhood,” in which she conducted interviews with contemporary Lithuanian artists. Their video stories were later exhibited, and Lucija will share selected excerpts, highlighting recurring themes and challenges faced by artist-mothers.
She will also introduce three artist collectives from the Czech Republic, Germany, and Lithuania that integrate motherhood into their artistic practice while also functioning as support groups. These initiatives highlight the need for solidarity and structural change within the art world.
This discussion circle invites participants to listen to different stories and engage in a dialogue about the realities faced by artist-mothers today.
Lucija Lunder holds a bachelor’s degree in Art History and Philosophy and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Art History and History at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. She spent one semester studying at Charles University in Prague and, in 2024, completed a three-month internship at Kaunas Artists’ House in Lithuania. Since 2019, she has been professionally active as an external collaborator with various museums and galleries in Ljubljana.
Autotextuality and (Non)motherhood
- Lecture/ gathering
- February 18th at 16.30 PM (Zoom)
After an introductory section devoted to theoretical issues related to autobiographical writing (or autotheory, authification, and autotextuality), we will attempt to show how autotextual rhetorical strategies are used in the book “Motherhood” by Sheila Heti (OceanMore, 2021, translated by Maja Šoljan) and comment on the main thematic concerns of the book: how to make a decision about (non)motherhood and what “decision” actually means, (non)motherhood and gender roles, and especially the relationship between (non)motherhood and art.
Maša Grdešić is an assistant professor at the Department of Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, where she received her PhD in 2010 with a thesis on Croatian women’s magazines. She is the author of a book at the intersection of narrative theory, cultural studies, and feminist theory. She is one of the founders and editors of the Muf portal (2014–2018).
