Term Time

A Revolutionary Lexicon for Mother-Demics – A Performance Text

Authors

  • Laura Bissell
  • Lucy Tyler

Abstract

Term/Time/A Revolutionary Lexicon for Mother-Demics was first performed as part of the ResearchWorks Series at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, England, on Monday, February 24, 2025. In this written publication following the performance, we begin with a note on the fonts readers will encounter herein. Taking a cue from the typographical polyvocality of mothering in Jackie Kay’s The Adoption Papers (1998), the performers, Dr. Laura Bissell and Dr. Lucy Tyler, express themselves in three typefaces. Lucy’s typeface (and her speech acts in performance) is a font often used in children’s literature: Gill Sans. Laura’s typeface is Grotesque, acknowledging the historical connotations of this term with birthing bodies. A third typeface, Segoe UI, is used to demonstrate the mother-demics’ collective speech. Segoe UI is the typeface of the web and desktop app Microsoft Teams, the forum for the mother-demics’ communications. Herein, we appropriate Segoe UI as a speculative organizing typography of mother-demics. We begin the performance now. 

Author Biographies

Laura Bissell

Laura Bissell is an Athenaeum Research Fellow and lecturer in contemporary performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Laura is the editor of Performance in a Pandemic, Making Routes and Bubbles: Reflections on Becoming a Mother and the author of the poetry collection, A-Z of Sites of Love and Loss. Laura’s research interests include technology, ecology, interdisciplinarity, matrescence, feminism, and performance and journeys. She is currently writing a monograph on matrescence and performance (Intellect, 2025) and coediting the International Journal of Performance Art and Digital Media’s special edition on matrescence and media. 

Lucy Tyler

Lucy Tyler is an associate professor of performance practices at the University of Reading. She is a somatic movement facilitator, performance maker, dramaturg, and scholar. As a performance maker, Lucy currently makes screendances exploring m/othering, ecosomatics, and remains. Lucy’s scho-larly work analyses embodied and creative artistic processes, focussing on how artists and writers develop themselves and their work. She is the author of numerous articles and chapters on performance development and the forthcoming English Play Development under Neoliberalism (CUP, 2024). She is the principal investigator on the Arts Council-Funder Work in Progress (UoR/South Street), which seed funds and facilitates new performance-making. Lucy is the founding codirector of Elements Eco Soma Lab, an intermedial movement research project. 

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Published

2025-03-31

How to Cite

Bissell, L., & Tyler, L. (2025). Term Time: A Revolutionary Lexicon for Mother-Demics – A Performance Text. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, 15(1. Spring / Fall), 22. Retrieved from https://jarm3.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/jarm/article/view/40712

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 1. Spring / Fall (2025): 25th Anniversary Issue on Mothering and Motherhood

Section

Articles

License

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