In June/July 24 I took part in a residency at the Birth Rites Collection Summer School. Birth Rites is the first and only collection of contemporary artwork dedicated to the subject of childbirth and is currently housed at the University of Kent. During this residency I developed a response to the collection through a series of film sketches/performances to camera, and animations. Including 'The Coronation' (July 2024). 'Kneading Series' (July 2024) and 'Lechon' (July 2024). These short films were presented as part of a talk and sharing of responses to the Birth Rites collection at the University of Kent and online on the 4th of July 2024.

Transcript from discussion after presentation of Films. Alexa Reid discussing 'The Coronation'

"I wanted to look at that point of crowning as an image, as an action, as a point of transition. As a liminal space betwixt and between birthing and being born into motherhood – speaking to ideas of matrescence – becoming and (un)becoming mother. I wanted to play with visual puns/metaphors, humour and the conundrum of the chicken and the egg as well as a nod toward a description of female genitalia as the ‘Cocks Comb’ as described by 17th century midwife Jane Sharp in 'The midwives book, or, the whole art of midwifry discovered'. The image plays with repetition, hoping to express cycles, time, the unrelenting experience of motherhood - the film presents 9 synchronised frames nodding to the 9 months of conscious pregnancy. The image loops back and returns to itself, the mother re-consumes the egg, ingesting/digesting motherhood - or perhaps denying the birth. The focus on the mouth as the birthing orifice might speak to ideas of consumption, and societal expectations, to being voiceless – the invisibility of mothering and that experience, leaning into visual ideas of oral fixation - and the passing down of language. The repetition of the image and the use of a chicken egg might also suggest narratives of battery farming and points towards conversations of reproductive rights."

Related URL: https://www.birthritescollection.org.uk/the-collection-1

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/39251