Overcoming the Cultural Barriers to Breastfeeding
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.
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.
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.
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.
Unveiling: 12-3pm Friday November 15th, 1.00PM Bowling Park Wild area, Bradford I am always looking for ways to reach more … More
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
Singing Mamas joined with the Holding Time Project Manchester mothers to create a warm afternoon of storytelling and chorus for the end of the writing workshops at Manchester Art Gallery.
Mothers read from new writing at this informal live event at Kala Sangam Arts Centre, Bradford
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 hosted Holding Time’s first multi-screen installation—mothers’ voices, animation, and music exploring breastfeeding, culture and time.
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.
