Of Dogs and Daughters brings a compelling record of female artists and writers, whose voices have been documented and collected through friendships and chance encounters. Combined with found material that proposes dog-human perspectives, this book attempts to redefine the mother-daughter relationship through a surrogate lens, exploring images of closeness, of violence caused by film franchises and mechanisms of nostalgia aimed at caregivers and children. The contributions by artists Carmen Dusmet Carrasco and Simona Koutná, and writer Susan van Veen are complemented by the introspections of memoirist Giuseppa and interlaced with passages from the novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956) by Dodie Smith. Each voice represents a unique personal account against a backdrop of deficient social support, single parenthood and absent caregivers, serving as meeting points on a journey of inner emancipation. The book was created in 2022 as part of Simona Koutná’s doctoral research project My Surrogate Self, which focuses on decoding how visual culture shapes female representation and self-identity. With this aim, Koutná delves into her childhood pop-cultural idols, dating back to the 1950s, rediscovering the nostalgia of her parents' and grandparents' generations and intertwining it with her own childhood experiences in the 1990s. She seeks to explore how these ingrained archetypes resonate today. Edited by Susan van Veen, the book weaves together interpretations and experiences of a fictional canine character with stories of motherhood, viewed from the external perspective of a daughter—stories that don't always align with the mother's internal narrative. Through this content, femininity is portrayed as a fragmented experience, challenging the patriarchal construction of "woman." This experience, filled with blind spots—seen through both human and highly anthropomorphized canine eyes—traverses various locations including Rome, northern Italy, Prague, The Hague, Amsterdam, and London (Primrose Hill), covering a time span from 1950 to 2024.

[Issuu.com]