Designing Motherhood Narrative Portrait project
2021–2022
Documentary video series
2021–2022
Documentary video series
I served as the video editor and score composer on this ongoing series, working in collaboration with Designing Motherhood curators Zoë Greggs and Gabriella Nelson. Greggs and Nelson visited with the direct service staff--doulas, lactation consultants, early childhood and culturally-appropriate care experts--who are the beating heart and soul of Maternity Care Coalition’s daily work to protect the lives and health of birthing people and their infants.
Their hope was to shine a light on the hard and usually hidden work direct service staff do to care for people on a daily basis. To do that, they listened to their stories.
The project takes inspiration from legendary specultive Afrofuturist, Octavia E. Butler, particularly The Parable of the Sower (1983), and the images in the episodes come, in the main, from MCC’s archives stretching back to the early 1980s. The series includes three episodes which will be released gradually in the winter of 2021-22.
Directed by: Zoë Greggs and Gabriella Nelson
Storytellers in Episode 1: Julia Lewis, Karen Pollack, Gabriella Nelson
Storytellers in Episode 2: Adrianne Edwards, Tekara Gainey
Images: From the Maternity Care Coalition archives held at the University of Pennsylvania Kislak Library; and other licensed images
Edited by: Austin Fisher
Music by: Austin Fisher
Oral History Practices Research: Romy St. Hilaire
Rights to these stories are held by the storytellers themselves.
Their hope was to shine a light on the hard and usually hidden work direct service staff do to care for people on a daily basis. To do that, they listened to their stories.
The project takes inspiration from legendary specultive Afrofuturist, Octavia E. Butler, particularly The Parable of the Sower (1983), and the images in the episodes come, in the main, from MCC’s archives stretching back to the early 1980s. The series includes three episodes which will be released gradually in the winter of 2021-22.
Directed by: Zoë Greggs and Gabriella Nelson
Storytellers in Episode 1: Julia Lewis, Karen Pollack, Gabriella Nelson
Storytellers in Episode 2: Adrianne Edwards, Tekara Gainey
Images: From the Maternity Care Coalition archives held at the University of Pennsylvania Kislak Library; and other licensed images
Edited by: Austin Fisher
Music by: Austin Fisher
Oral History Practices Research: Romy St. Hilaire
Rights to these stories are held by the storytellers themselves.