Participate in the social media debate during and following the screening of artist Sheona Beaumont’s birth on One Born Every Minute and take part in the creation of her new artwork for forthcoming Birth Rites Collection art exhibition.
Visual artist Sheona Beaumont became a mum for the second time in September 2013, and was filmed at Southmead Hospital, Bristol, for Channel 4’s One Born Every Minute. As part of the Birth Online: Birth Offline project, she will be making new photographic work about her experience, and about the place for a spiritual expression of birth in such a public domain. Central to the process of making this work will be the response on social media during and after the episode in which she and her husband, a curate in the Church of England, feature on the 10th of March 2014. As an interactive live event, watched by millions, this documented conversation will form an integral part of the lenticular prints she intends to produce.
Beaumont’s perspective of faith brings a deeper reflection to birth and motherhood, which, far from being incompatible with the hospital environment or watching cameras, finds a place for praying the Bible, collective involvement, and even the virtual equivalent of a rite such as ‘The Churching of Women’, once well-known in the Anglican tradition. If ceremonies around birth have largely been lost in our medicalised Western culture today, it is nevertheless true that it remains a profoundly transforming moment for women where the extraordinarily miraculous meets the visceral intensity of bodily labour. To the extent that One Born Every Minute celebrates that moment as part of the story and background of the individuals, producers focussed on the importance of the Christian faith Beaumont shares with her husband, alongside and within the medical and relational approaches of the programme. Editing (One Born Every Minute) remained the full responsibility of Dragonfly Film & TV Productions.
Blogs
www.shospace.co.uk/blog
http://birthonlinebirthoffline.tumblr.com/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/20887033779/?ref=ts&fref=ts
#OneBorn
#Birth_rites
Sheona Beaumont completed her Masters in Visual Culture at the University of Nottingham (2004). She has had numerous successful exhibitions with her digitally-created photographic work on subjects relating to the Christian faith and the contexts for visual expression of theological ideas and practice, from monastic faith on Dartmoor to the abolition of the slave trade – see www.shospace.co.uk. Currently on maternity leave, Beaumont is studying for a PhD at the University of Gloucestershire,
where she is a Bible Society sponsored candidate at the Centre for the Bible and Spirituality, exploring visual representations of biblical imagery in photography and photo-based media. As well as publishing articles and reviews regularly, a second edition of her book ‘Bristol Through the Lens’ was published with Tangent Press in 2011. She is a regional associate for Art & Christianity Enquiry in the South West, being based in Bristol.
Birth Online: Birth Offline is a cross-cultural participatory arts project exploring varying communities perspectives on the idea of public birth. The exhibition will feature the work of ten artists including; Sheona Beaumont, Hermione Wiltshire, Helen Knowles, Claire Lawrie, Dylan Minor, Stelios Manganis, Rose Gibbs, Eti Wade, Anna MacDonald and Madeline Naranjo.
Over the past ten years childbirth has become increasingly visible via television, print and online media. Women’s need to document and publish their own birth on online platforms has exploded, to the extent that some YouTube birth videos achieve the same volume of hits as many popular music videos. Equally, TV programs like One Born Every Minute are contributing to the growing visual representation of childbirth in mainstream culture. What does the new ‘graphic visibility’ of birth in the digital age mean for our society? How do diverse audiences react to the different mediums used to represent birth ie. sculpture, drawing, painting and now photography, film and online platforms?
Birth Online: Birth Offline is curated by Helen Knowles, Birth Rites curator and Samantha Lippett, Birth Rites curatorial intern. The project has received funding from Arts Council England and The Association of Art Historians.
Blogging and Research
Knowles carried out an artist residency over the summer of 2013 at Santa Fe Arts Institute in New Mexico and visited Native American women and midwives from the pueblos in and around Santa Fe. On returning to the UK seminars, meetings and workshops were held with British men and women in Salford University; Castlefield Gallery; Cambridge University, Art in the Pub – Association of Art Historians and UCLAN. These meetings have enabled the team to garner thoughts on the growing visual representation of childbirth in mainstream culture, through digital media and social networking. After blogging these meetings, uploading recordings and images of this research they are now bringing together a large-scale exhibition of ten artists’ contemporary responses to this new phenomenon of birth in the digital age. The venue for the show is to be confirmed but possible venues include The Museum of Childhood, London and Brighton University Art Gallery.
Birth Rites Collection is on permanent public display in the Midwifery Directorate, University of Salford and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London. It is the only collectionin the world dedicated to the theme of childbirth and comprises of painting, print, wallpapers, sculpture, artist books, new media, installation work and drawing by international artists including Judy Chicago. More information can be found at http://www.birthritescollection.org.uk