Art exhibition at Birkbeck explores fertility in history
A collaboration between Birkbeck academic Dr Isabel Davis and artist Anna Burrel has produced a series of artworks depicting the history of 'un-pregnancy', which will feature at The Peltz Gallery.
A new exhibition ‘Conceiving Histories’ opening at the Peltz Gallery at Birkbeck looks at the experience of ‘un-pregnancy’, a material history of pregnancies which are feigned, imagined, hidden or difficult to diagnose.
The Conceiving Histories exhibition is a collaboration between Birkbeck academic and literary historian Dr Isabel Davis, and visual artist Anna Burel, producing creative and fictional interpretations of the archives of un-pregnancy. The artworks – a collection of photographs, prints, drawings and sculptures – are a response to Dr Davis' historical research into the uncertainties of early pregnancy, the experience of trying to conceive and the politics of childlessness in the past.
Dr Davis, Reader in Medieval Literature and Culture at Birkbeck said: “Not becoming a parent or not being pregnant, when those things are desired, can feel like a nothing; like nothing is happening in an ongoing way. Our project is finding a material history, which means that this experience is not nothing.
“While reproductive medicine is at the forefront of modern science, biomedical technology has no jurisdiction over the experiences of waiting, not knowing and disappointment. On the other hand, art and history can take us out of ourselves and give us neutral ground to reflect on the very strange experience of the body in un-pregnancy.”
She added: “The project is also interested in the history of women's reproductive bodies. What control and rights do women have over their own bodies and stories? How has the reproductive experience shaped and governed women's lives?”
The Conceiving Histories project was founded by Dr Davis who partnered with Fertility Network UK, the largest fertility support charity in the UK and received funding from global charitable foundation the Wellcome Trust and Birkbeck.
The exhibition looks at archival materials from four case studies: Mary Tudor's two false pregnancies; an eighteenth-century fashion for a pad which simulated pregnancy; a strange nineteenth-century experiment to learn how to diagnose pregnancy; and the frog pregnancy test from the middle of the twentieth-century.
London-based visual artist Anna Burel said: “Conceiving Histories investigates the very ordinary experience of not being pregnant for month after month; the difficulties for medical professionals in diagnosing pregnancy; and men’s anxieties about their own reproductive fortunes. It looks at fakes and fashions, dreams and denials, trying and testing.”
The exhibition will be on display at The Peltz Gallery from 8 November - 13 December. A private viewing and reception will be held on 15 November.
Further Information
- Dr Isabel Davis
- Conceiving Histories: Exhibition
- The Peltz Gallery
- Department of English and Humanities