Book cover and back cover spread for Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Screenshot from Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Screenshot from Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Screenshot from Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Screenshot from Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Screenshot from Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Screenshot from Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Screenshot from Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Screenshot from Angela Washko’s Mother, Player.

Mother, Player

Angela Washko is a media artist, filmmaker, and experimental game developer who creates new forums for discussions about feminism in spaces frequently hostile towards it.

Artist Bio
Mother, Player is an experimental narrative video game featuring pregnancy and early parenthood stories from artists during the global pandemic. Set within a backdrop of the tense 2020 United States election and a terrifying new international health crisis, players explore the maternal healthcare industry and parenting culture as a burnt out pansexual artist who has decided to have a child despite an increasingly discouraging geopolitical climate that deprioritizes and devalues care. The game additionally addresses the lack of multi-dimensional pregnancy and early parenthood stories in video games—something that the game developer herself became sensitive to and critical of after becoming pregnant, giving birth, and taking care of a newborn during this isolated and uncertain time. All of the interfaces, animations, fonts, buttons, dialogue boxes, and icons have been hand drawn and animated by the artist, as part of a commitment to building a poetic, soft, labor-intensive, and complex game-world reflective of the childcare experiences she and the other artist parents have had during the pandemic.
Discipline
Digital Media, Games
Award Year
2020
Status

In Progress

Themes

2021 Artist Retreat Presentation

Events

Angela Washko: You Are: Mother, Player

Apriil 5–May 5, 2024

Public Works Administration
1627 Broadway, New York, NY
Enter via Downtown 1 Train at 50th
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A purple-haired artist looks over her shoulder.

Angela Washko

Pittsburgh, PA

Angela Washko is a media artist, filmmaker, and experimental game developer who creates new forums for discussions about feminism in spaces frequently hostile towards it. Her practice spans interventions in virtual environments, performance art, media installation, documentary film, and video games. A recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship, Creative Capital Award, Franklin Furnace Performance Fund, Impact Award at Indiecade, and Jury Awards for Best Documentary at the American Film Festival, San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, and Buffalo International Film Festival, Washko’s practice has been highlighted in The New Yorker, Frieze Magazine, Time Magazine, The Guardian, ArtForum, The Los Angeles Times, Art in America, The New York Times and more. Her projects have been presented internationally at venues including Museum of the Moving Image, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Milan Design Triennale, and the Shenzhen Animation Biennial. Angela Washko is an Associate Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.

Events