Art, Motherhood & Creative Health
Why do so many mothers stop breastfeeding before they want to? In this foundational 2019 article, the Holding Time Project examines breastfeeding inequalities, declining support services and the cultural attitudes that make breastfeeding difficult. Drawing on public health research and mothers’ experiences in Brighton, the article argues that breastfeeding should not be viewed solely as an individual responsibility, but as something requiring collective social, cultural and political support.
Breastfeeding is food. It is part of the wider network of food production and relations. The food of love, as it has been called. And it is. Breastfeeding provides sustenance and nourishment and love in one swift gesture.
Birth and breastfeeding are an invitation to enter into another domain of time. Or more accurately, to be intime, to be grounded in the cycle of life.
Breastfeeding is not the norm in the UK, and breastfeeding in public can be especially daunting to a new mother. The anxiety that many women face shows that. In the last Infant Feeding Survey, 45% of mothers said they felt uncomfortable feeding in front of others, and most acutely so in public spaces*.
by Lucila Newell, October 30th 2017 Connecting with others, sharing stories, finding a role model is crucial to breastfeeding. Because breastfeeding is…
The arguments for breastfeeding in terms of health are already won, but breastfeeding statistics remain impossibly low in the UK. How can this be? Because the barriers to breastfeeding are cultural, not medical but the majority of information about breastfeeding comes from the medical community. This viewpoint says that women should breastfeed, without acknowledging the personal and emotional struggles involved in doing so.
Artist Lisa Creagh joins Christiane Monarchi, founder and editor of Photomonitor, for an in-depth conversation about the origins and development of the Holding Time Project. Exploring photography, feminism, maternal time and the cultural invisibility of breastfeeding, the discussion reveals how personal experiences of motherhood inspired an ambitious collaborative artwork. From animated portraits and glass timepieces to mothers’ recorded stories, the conversation examines how art can challenge social conventions and create new ways of representing maternal experience.
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.
