Half a Million Views and Rising

The Holding Time Project is celebrating an extraordinary milestone, with mothers’ stories reaching audiences around the world.

Originally commissioned by Improving Me, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s Health and Maternity Programme, the project uses photography, film and creative storytelling to amplify women’s lived experiences of breastfeeding, birth and motherhood.

With 2,400 hours of watch time and hundreds of new subscribers, these stories demonstrate the power of creative health to challenge misconceptions, reduce isolation and connect families.

Exploring Breastfeeding Challenges in Bradford Podcast Episodes

The Bradford season of the Holding Time podcast brings together a diverse range of mothers’ stories about breastfeeding, adoption, pregnancy, free-birthing, donor milk, preterm babies and birth trauma. Co-created with mothers, local infant feeding teams and community partners, the series examines breastfeeding as part of the wider experience of motherhood and maternal wellbeing in Bradford.

Bradford Mothers’ Voices Take to the Streets in the ‘Holding Time Milk Line’

The Holding Time Milk Line celebrates Bradford mothers through an immersive walking trail of art, poetry, and storytelling. Created by artist Lisa Creagh for Baby Week Bradford, the trail links Family Hubs and green spaces, inviting families to listen, reflect, and connect with local stories of motherhood, feeding, and wellbeing.

Royal Society for Public Health 2024 Health and Wellbeing Awards, where the National Arts in Hospitals Network won the Arts and Health category for Our National Health Stories

Winner 2024 | Holding Time Arts and Health

The Royal Society for Public Health announced the winners of its 2024 Health & Wellbeing Awards, with the National Arts in Hospitals Network’s Our National Health Stories winning the Arts and Health category. Holding Time formed part of this national programme, bringing maternal stories and breastfeeding experiences into NHS settings through photography, film and creative health practice.

Hear Us Roar! Open Eye Launch

With an audience of NHS staff, the social prescribing Team from WHAM, members of the local CCG and local breastfeeding mentors, the performances by mothers were entertaining, moving and full of meaning.

Coventry Daze: Holding Time and Coventry City of Breastfeeding 2021

In Coventry Daze, Lisa Creagh reflects on creating Holding Time’s Coventry project during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mothers from diverse backgrounds took part in Zoom interviews, storytelling workshops, portrait sessions and exhibitions, resulting in writing, animated portraits, films and permanent hospital artworks. The project celebrated breastfeeding while exploring cultural, structural and emotional barriers.

Presentation at BFN Conference 2019

For this event I put together a slideshow, beginning with the story of my own struggles to breastfeed, then the rationale for the Holding Time still images, how these lead to the animation and installation. Finally I talked about the project website, the breastfeeding Hubs, the YouTube Channel interviews.

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.