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Quelques jeunes mères, (mes amies)
Quelques jeunes mères, (mes amies) is the beginning of an archive of testimonies of pregnancies and births, and it is also the culmination of a research project that began two years ago, when one of my dearest friends, Isabelle, started to welcome a new life inside her.
It was not so much the event of her pregnancy that brought me closer to this theme, but the decision to give birth at home, instead of in a hospital. When I had the opportunity, I enthusiastically shared Isabelle's story. Unfortunately, I often encountered negative judgements, especially from those in hospital roles, such as gynaecologists and midwives, who called her ‘irresponsible’.
How was it possible that the decision to give birth at home brought with it so many negative judgements? Was I supposed to start worrying about my friend too? Or was there something to investigate and bring to light?
Before long, quite coincidentally, I became a catalyst for narratives of experiences of such different births, often dramatic or with traumatic consequences.
Like during my first driving lesson, when my instructor told me about her horrible experience in hospital, going so far as to say that if she got pregnant again, she would definitely opt for a caesarean section. How was that possible? How could a young mother come to regard pregnancy and childbirth as a pathology instead of a physiological act?
The subject of pregnancy and childbirth in particular is a very sensitive one and, unfortunately, barely discussed. Especially when childbirth does not go as it should, there is a tendency not to talk about it. But what are the consequences of this silence?
During my research, I came across the book ‘Chicken Soup and the Midwife on Four Wheels’ by Monica Trettel, a work that collects the testimony of one of the last midwives in South Tyrol who assists with home birth. And I discovered many things I did not know about my own body, and how much wisdom it is capable of at the moment of childbirth. I became aware of how many choices we delegate to others, and how giving life is no longer a theme in our daily lives. Yet, it is the action, the passage, the doorway that brings us here, into life, all of us, without exception.
I wondered how to talk about such a complex and necessary subject, and to my aid came French artist Agnès Varda (1928-2019) with her work ‘Quelques Veuves de Noirmoutier’ (A Few Widows of Noirmoutier), an installation on a museum wall of twelve video-portraits of widowed women and men sharing their experience.
One of these is the artist herself, but she is the only one who does not speak. Viewers have the choice of which story they want to connect with, and in doing so the artist creates a possible bridge between the subject and the viewer.
I choose as well to let the women speak directly to the viewer, interviewing three of them, including my dear friend Isabelle. All three with different but complementary stories of childbirth.
The decision to organise the installation in the shape of a circle is closely connected to the concept of the Vase, which I have explored in parallel in recent years.
The Vase is a container that welcomes, offers space to hold and release.
The Circle is the mouth of the Vase, and the Vase is the empty Space par excellence.
The woman, unlike the man, lives her life more or less aware of having an empty space inside her, the womb, ready to host a new life. The concept of the two and therefore of the other is inherent in the nature of woman.
The Circle, therefore, creates space for this theme.
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