Cultural memories of breastfeeding: race, class and migration

Anna Horn writes about the challenges of breastfeeding her first child. Her unique perspective an African American offers valuable insight of the complexities around breastfeeding for black women here and abroad.

Halton Family Hubs

Holding Time moves into the new Family Hub Network in Halton with creative writing workshops, portraits across seven venues and an audio tour around the beautiful walled garden at Norton Priory

Open Eye Gallery Interview

Women are constantly faced with this difficult choice. And it is often a woman’s choice whether they want to carry on with their career and keep climbing the ladder and earning more and getting what they deserve, or whether they want to prioritise their children. There’s just this constant juggle of yourself over your child. I feel like I do prioritise myself a lot. I’ve been very selfish in many ways to continue with this work. The unselfish thing perhaps, would have been to go and get a job.

The Ecology of Care | Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool 2022

At Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, The Ecology of Care explored themes of motherhood, care, and connection through art, photography, and music—highlighting community, resilience, and maternal wellbeing.

Coventry Daze

In this year of years, mothers have experienced the most challenging circumstances: solo scans, solo births, isolation and a loss of family support. All the more reason to press ahead with Coventry City of Breastfeeding, my project for Coventry City of Culture 2021. It was an experience with massive highs and lows against a backdrop of restrictions, fear and uncertainty, I tried to create something worthy of the wise women of Coventry…

Bonding

A baby’s brain is constantly making new pathways. 250,000 neurons are formed per minute in a fetal brain throughout pregnancy and that proliferation, migration, differentiation, synaptogenesis continue into the toddler years and pruning of these until puberty. Each baby’s personality, body, brain and trans generational inheritance is of course unique and dependent upon their DNA, yet their experiences and exposure to the world around them throughout pregnancy and in early life also all have an effect on them.

Presentation at Warwick University Maternity Themed Clinical Trials Launch

I spoke about my project and the aims of partnering with the CTU for Coventry City of Culture. I showed the animated portraits, as well as a slideshow of stills. it was the first time I had presented the work in a meidcal setting and I found the atmosphere invigorating. It gave me new insight into how clinical trials lead the way to greater understanding of new approaches.

Thoughts from ONCA

Over the past few weeks I have been at the gallery every day. Sometimes I just sat on the beanbags and enjoyed the quiet. Other days I had others to join me: Lucila came almost every day. Many mothers came with their children. But also quite a few fathers. And others who had never had children; young women interested in the subject with their boyfriends, mothers whose babies had grown, mothers who had not breastfed, mothers who were still breastfeeding their four year old, mothers with newborns still struggling with the adjustment to motherhood.

Fabrica Gallery Installation

Fabrica Gallery hosted Holding Time’s first multi-screen installation—mothers’ voices, animation, and music exploring breastfeeding, culture and time.

ONCA Gallery, Brighton, UK 2018

In 2018, Holding Time partnered with ONCA Gallery in Brighton to test the idea of a Breastfeeding Hub—a welcoming space for mothers’ voices, interviews, and conversations about the cultural and structural barriers to breastfeeding.

Growing Time

From drawings, to glass, to photos, to 2D to 3D to coding – the Timepiece has taken years to make but is rooted in an interest in non-linear time that predates this work.

Bradford Podcast | Mothers’ Voices on Breastfeeding & Care

The Bradford Podcast amplifies mothers’ diverse voices on breastfeeding, adoption, milk donation, birth trauma, and cultural traditions—part of Holding Time’s wider Creative Health programme in Bradford.

Winner 2024 | Holding Time Arts & Health

We are proud to announce that Holding Time received the Royal Society for Public Health’s Health & Wellbeing Award 2024 for its pioneering arts and health work supporting breastfeeding, mothers, and NHS partners.