Pittsburgh Cultural TrustGo to the home page

Fran Ledonio Flaherty, a first-generation immigrant from the Philippines, has lived in Pittsburgh for 30 years. Flaherty is a teaching artist, and her work addresses the intersectionality of racism, disability, and motherhood. She is the founder of Anthropology of Motherhood an immersive art space that has been featured for several years now at the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival. This hybrid exhibition is innovatively designed as both an art space, an interactive amenity, and a place of respite for families with young children. She is also a member of the increasingly relevant art collective, #notwhite.

“It’s weird, growing up in Manila, I had no idea what Pittsburgh was, other than my uncle was a professor of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh. When McDonald’s first opened in the Philippines, I remember seeing catsup packets that said Heinz on them, not knowing how significant that name would be to me.” A graduate of the Studio Arts and History of Art and Architecture program at the University of Pittsburgh, she came to know the city through her years there. Ms. Flaherty (no relation to late Pittsburgh mayor Pete Flaherty 1970-1977), never imagined calling Pittsburgh home. Marriage and family life led Ms. Flaherty (who is Deaf) to settle in Allison Park, Hampton Township, just north of Pittsburgh.

Through humor, technology, and history, her exhibition examines her experiences as a Deaf Brown Artist Mom and how to find her place in the city she now calls her home. “There’s so much gurgling in my soul that I can only make art to help me, and others, identify and understand my perspective. I am always straddling between identities: Pittsburgher versus Filipino-Chinese immigrant, hearing versus deaf, mother versus artist, disability advocate versus disabled person. I am often viewed as an outsider in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is my home. It is the city that I have lived most of my life and yet I often feel unwelcome.”

With over seventy artworks, Flaherty’s exhibition Deaf Brown American Mom provides a range of media such as silk prints, photographs, 3D prints, digital fabricated pieces, acrylic paintings to express her work of living in a post 2016 America. Within this show, there is a smaller exhibit called Lockdown. “COVID-19 put the challenges of 2016 on a different plane. I felt that my identity during the global pandemic was shaken even more. The struggles that we are used to, was felt ten-fold.” Included in this smaller exhibition are references to politically charged events such as several trials related to the Black Lives Matter movement, mask and vaccination protests, and the riots that took place on January 6, 2021 on the U.S. Capitol.