Birthing Bodies

Installation view, Birthing Bodies, Tang Teaching Museum, 2017

Film still from Stan Brakhage’s Window Water Baby Moving, 1959

Birthing Bodies explores childbirth through a feminist lens, examining ideas of autonomy, power, and liminality. As a ubiquitous event, birth need not be relegated to a strictly female, maternal experience; instead, the exhibition explores birth as elemental, an incredible physical feat, and perhaps the strongest human lesson in formation and connectivity.

The works in this exhibition counter the image of the pregnant and birthing body as either a romanticized maternal ideal or, within the realm of medicine, a machine: a means of production that needs institutional intervention. Instead, the artists of this exhibition represent the female body, pregnant body, or birthing body as a site of strength and power. Ultimately, each work asks us to consider how we shape and are shaped by each other, and to understand birthing bodies as powerful agents rather than helpless subjects.

This exhibition is the capstone project for Laila Morgan ‘18, the 2016-17 Carole Marchand ’57 Endowed Intern. The Internship is a yearlong opportunity to introduce a student to post-graduate life by providing academic and practical experience in one or more areas of the Tang over the course of his or her junior year.

Birthing Bodies is curated by Laila Morgan ’18, the 2016-17 Carole Marchand ’57 Endowed Intern and is supported by the Friends of the Tang and the Carter-Rodriguez Fund for Student-Curated Programs. To learn more about the internship, visit our Internships & Student Jobs page.