Breach Birth
Breach Birth
New Work by Rachael Allen
2010
Lime Street Gallery, Ouesburn, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
One womb: A single cell: the first breath.
The 21st century has given birth to technological advances in obstetric practices. Now largely managed by medical professions, fear and suspicion of natural childbirth have led to violent and invasive birth practices. On the one hand, labour is seen as a natural, emotionally fulfilling event. Birth is an experience that is deeply engraved in our souls. Jungian psychology establishes giving birth and being born as archetypal experience of profound emotional and spiritual significance. On the other hand, it is seen as potentially the most dangerous period of existence for both mother and baby.
Being born and coming into the world is a unique initiation that entails considerable stress; only achieved by immense struggle on behalf of the nascent. Each contraction compresses the placenta and umbilical cord, curtailing the oxygen supply from mother to baby. A surge in the secretion of adrenaline and non-adrenaline hormones, to levels higher than at any other time in later life, prepares the infant for a sudden switch from an aquatic environment to an independent air breathing mammal.
Management of labour is of vital importance in minimising maternal morbidity and maternal death. But nature can be fickle….
Death in utero: an umbilical noose: a breach of birth.
The physiological processes which occur during transition from the womb to world are both sudden and dramatic. A life terminated before its first breath.
30-60 seconds proceeding a successful delivery, the umbilical cord is doubly clamped 1-2 cm from baby and divided. Now, the mother/womb/former neonate’s abode, are all redundant in managing gas exchange, nutrition, thermoregulation and immunity. A new soul and corpus has incarnated; vulnerable and exposed to the world for man kind to feast on; for every earthly pain and pleasure.
Confronting the reality of childbirth is central to the work in ‘Breach Birth’. Small pencil drawings fixate on what Kristeva considers the abject maternal body: “...desirable and terrifying, nourishing and murderous...” The blood and afterbirth which emerge from the maternal body are visible signs of the connection between inside and outside, self and other, thus “what disturbs identity, system, order...does not respect borders positions, rules.” The reduction in scale and absence of bloody hues make what were graphic, explicit and inescapably abject photographs somewhat more palatable, even beautiful.
From the corporal to the inanimate, miniature models and familiar objects communicate tender visions of the physical and psychological conditions of childbirth. The present absence of the mother and her neonate mirrors the innately volatile nature of maternal nurture.
Contemplate a return to the womb. Assume the fetal position and umbilical connection in utero. A place of safety, protection, nourishment? Or a metaphor for suffocation, entrapment and imprisonment, where the pending release is one of struggle, pain and peril?
A still birth would be preferable.
New Work by Rachael Allen
2010
Lime Street Gallery, Ouesburn, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
One womb: A single cell: the first breath.
The 21st century has given birth to technological advances in obstetric practices. Now largely managed by medical professions, fear and suspicion of natural childbirth have led to violent and invasive birth practices. On the one hand, labour is seen as a natural, emotionally fulfilling event. Birth is an experience that is deeply engraved in our souls. Jungian psychology establishes giving birth and being born as archetypal experience of profound emotional and spiritual significance. On the other hand, it is seen as potentially the most dangerous period of existence for both mother and baby.
Being born and coming into the world is a unique initiation that entails considerable stress; only achieved by immense struggle on behalf of the nascent. Each contraction compresses the placenta and umbilical cord, curtailing the oxygen supply from mother to baby. A surge in the secretion of adrenaline and non-adrenaline hormones, to levels higher than at any other time in later life, prepares the infant for a sudden switch from an aquatic environment to an independent air breathing mammal.
Management of labour is of vital importance in minimising maternal morbidity and maternal death. But nature can be fickle….
Death in utero: an umbilical noose: a breach of birth.
The physiological processes which occur during transition from the womb to world are both sudden and dramatic. A life terminated before its first breath.
30-60 seconds proceeding a successful delivery, the umbilical cord is doubly clamped 1-2 cm from baby and divided. Now, the mother/womb/former neonate’s abode, are all redundant in managing gas exchange, nutrition, thermoregulation and immunity. A new soul and corpus has incarnated; vulnerable and exposed to the world for man kind to feast on; for every earthly pain and pleasure.
Confronting the reality of childbirth is central to the work in ‘Breach Birth’. Small pencil drawings fixate on what Kristeva considers the abject maternal body: “...desirable and terrifying, nourishing and murderous...” The blood and afterbirth which emerge from the maternal body are visible signs of the connection between inside and outside, self and other, thus “what disturbs identity, system, order...does not respect borders positions, rules.” The reduction in scale and absence of bloody hues make what were graphic, explicit and inescapably abject photographs somewhat more palatable, even beautiful.
From the corporal to the inanimate, miniature models and familiar objects communicate tender visions of the physical and psychological conditions of childbirth. The present absence of the mother and her neonate mirrors the innately volatile nature of maternal nurture.
Contemplate a return to the womb. Assume the fetal position and umbilical connection in utero. A place of safety, protection, nourishment? Or a metaphor for suffocation, entrapment and imprisonment, where the pending release is one of struggle, pain and peril?
A still birth would be preferable.