Motherhood: An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra Starring Judah Lang

Suzanne Bocanegra brings Motherhood to the Walker Art Center on May 21 and 22, 2027, at 7:30 PM. It's an artist lecture, but not in the way you're probably thinking. Bocanegra doesn't stand at a podium and talk at the audience; she presents it in her signature slide-lecture style, with actor Judah Lang on stage as her stand-in. Lang performs the piece, and the whole thing is directed by Claudia Zelevansky, with design and technical direction by Joey Wolfslau.

Motherhood is the fifth in a series where Bocanegra turns the artist lecture into a personal, researched, theatrical event. She blends memoir and cultural history with art historical analysis, and this one focuses on motherhood as a political state of being. She doesn't shy away from the heavy stuff, either—the piece gives voice to subjects that often get treated as taboo: the history of infanticide, the creation of orphanages, and the politics of infertility. It's a commission for Suzanne Bocanegra: Intersections, the broader project the Walker is presenting.

Bocanegra wears a lot of titles: performing artist, visual essayist, cultural historian, and mother. She works from deep research and personal memoir to find connections between forgotten histories and present-day realities, using the tools of visual art to test the boundaries of live performance and vice versa. The New Yorker described her art as "an antidote to the history-free, prepackaged world that threatens every day to overwhelm us."

If you're planning to go, there's more to see around it. The Walker is presenting Motherhood alongside Valley, a large-scale video installation that runs from April 3 through August 22, 2027, so you can catch that before or after the lecture. Motherhood plays at the McGuire Theater, and tickets start at $25.