Is it possible for artists to co-design health treatments that circumvent the need for pharmacological intervention? I want to find out…
Alongside the launch of the Holding Time Chair in Bowling Park in November was a soft launch of a new artwork, long in the making; the Timepiece I created to accompany the stop frame animations of mothers. Layer upon layer of imagery, ideas and activism shape this project.
One of the central concepts of the Holding Time Project is a Maternal Timepiece. Adapting Cosmateque design, the Timepiece uses scale to grow, rather than a conventional clock which illustrates time passing. This is the centrepiece of a new VR project, planned for mothers with infants in Neonatal Intensive Care.
Over ten years Holding Time has grown and changed but the concept of mothers breastfeeding within non-linear time, was the first idea. ‘Maternal Time’ i.e. time that can be described as different to linear Industrialised time, has never been shown visually. By listening to mothers, engaging with the health services and other support structures around them, I’m aiming to increase social concern for mothers, lessen health inequalities and alleviate the psychological distress of birth and breastfeeding that can lead to Post Natal Depression and PTSD.
From drawings, to glass, to photos, to 2D to 3D to coding – the Timepiece has taken years to make but it is rooted in an interest in non-linear time that predates this work.
Before I began this work, I spent years on – The Instant Garden – an exploration of medicalised fertility using photographically 3D creations based on Persian carpets (known as Instant Gardens in the desert). These pieces used the structural mathematics of Islamic design to explore fertility and time.
The Holding Time Project, is a multi-faceted program, looking at the interrelationships of society, fertility, technology and time. Keeping the project going, growing has been a similar process to raising a child: daily struggles with glimpses of joy. The launch of the Holding Timepiece – downloadable from the Holding Time Chair sculpture created with Dan Jones and Better Place, was one of those joyful moments.
Finally, I could feel that original idea coming to fruition – re-valuing maternal time, understanding that breastfeeding and motherhood can exist in a different timespace to work. Creating a new way of seeing time as growing, not passing.
Holding Time and seeing it grow, as we do with a child.
The timepiece began with the geometrical shapes of the Sistine Chapel floor. This floor is decorated in a design called Cosmatesque – a language of pattern lost to modern days.
I started creating my own Cosmatesque time design in drawings. I found a glassmaker – the wonderful Mike Barrett who also happens to be a brilliant mathematician and artist. Together we talked through the timecode I would make – a system of representing time from three simple geometrical shapes. My aim was to turn the 2D into 3D, as I had with the Persian carpets. To do this I needed 3D shapes and these were created by Mike in his studio in 2016- 17.
Once I had the shapes, I was able to take my drawings and create new patters in 3D using Adobe Photoshop. These were then animated in 2D using Adobe tools for the first exhibitions of Holding Time in 2018 at Fabrica Gallery, Brighton.
But I was dissatisfied with the quality of my own animation and talked to my animator friend, Steve Wilson about the possibilities of remaking the glass pieces in 3D animation. With a Developing Your Creative Practice grant from the Arts Council, this was finally made possible in 2021.
But it was only in 2024 that I finally made the piece work as a Timepiece – i.e. able to keep time using the code I had carefully created back in 2016. By now, I didn’t have a chance to show it to anyone, so the Chair launch was a great opportunity to see what people think.
It has been a long process so far but in the meantime, I have developed a Creative Health program for mothers, directly influenced breastfeeding policy, created resilience in communities where the project has run.
This year I’m planning to bring everything together into a VR intervention as a scalable, sustainable model to bring this project to mothers most at-risk of long-term psychological harm from birth and breastfeeding experiences. Together with a small team of researchers at Liverpool Womens Hospital, I will be building and testing a new prototype VR APP for NICU mothers.
I hope you’ll stay with me for the rest of the journey…
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