My Instagram Birth Art common amongst younger people who have not experienced or witnessed birth. To me, the pictures are beautiful. As well as what they show, they are exquisitely set up and, fascinatingly, accompanied by short films that show a little of the process. The guide says that, “Natalie Lennard has spoken at art and midwifery conventions where her images bridge the gap between art and birth” – a gap that needed bridging when you consider more common ideas about birth portrayed in art. I hope very much that these works are part of a movement towards normalising and celebrating birth and that my young friend helps spread the word. The exhibition has closed now but will open elsewhere and a lot can be seen (and bought!) here from the gallery site1 .You can also find information on the artist’s own site, including her backstory about the birth of her first child, Evan, who she triumphantly carried to term knowing he had a fatal condition incompatible with life outside the womb: www.birthundisturbed.com/the-series. Author Bio: Salli has helped raise 8 children – all born at home, though only 3 from her own womb –and is now an overly proud Nana. She is passionate about birth rights and rites, and about punctuation including the Oxford comma. Until recently these interests were useful to her as co-editor of the AIMS Journal, but she is now employed as fundraiser for the British Deaf Association and freelances as a copywriter. ENDNOTES 1 Natalie Lennard collection. https://spgallery.co.uk/collections/ natalie-lennard
www.aims.org.uk
Article
My Instagram Birth Art by Hannah Wood
This is a picture of a pregnant me walking up a hill in the Gower a few weeks before my daughter was born. Drawing and painting aren’t really my skills, so I used digital art techniques instead. It was fine to size it to an Instagram (IG) template as I’ve just started using IG myself as part of my creative life. It’s a picture of me doing outdoors stuff – I had a really easy pregnancy and kept active right up until the end, although it helped having my daughter arrive early. I’d never considered that as a possibility as they always tell you that first babies are likely to be later than expected. So while I definitely enjoyed being pregnant and I felt bonded to my child, I also felt that I had a science experiment going on in my tummy which made me use the diagram for my unborn child, remembering school biology. And I was aware that the science felt interesting to me – that feeling of excitement and wonder and not knowing how it’s going to turn out. But it did also feel like a lot of
Twitter @AIMS_online Facebook www.facebook.com/AIMSUK
21