Birth Rites Collection: Institutional Resistances

Birth Rites Collection – contemporary artworks on birth and the maternal – prompts awe and discourse but also moral outrage and censorship. The collection founded in 2008, moved to Kings College London in 2015 and comprises of photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, documentary and experimental film. BRC is a not-for-profit which relies on donations by artists and appropriates the economic tool of a collection to situate itself firmly within the institution.

However, since the first works were installed, the process has been much more difficult than anticipated. The curator Helen Knowles negotiated sites for each work but found several immediately taken down by those working in the building. She renegotiated alternatives but still incurred angry entries in the comments book from academics in the building threatening harassment in the workplace under the 2010 equalities act. This ultimately resulted in 17 works being removed, some of which were relocated in another building on the campus.

One artwork still not back on show is ‘Terese in Ecstatic Crowning’ by HW. Originally reproduced in Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin, HW appropriated it as a response to observing NCT antenatal classes when originally commissioned by Birth Rites in 2008.

The questions asked are; why a historic university where modern medicine began disavows the female body with such ferocity? And, is it the vagina, precisely evident in birth that is institutionally problematic? HW has a history of artworks that challenge arts institutions and asks what has been achieved by her strategies?