When making this collage, I was thinking about the relationship that is formed with the unborn baby. Pregnancy can so often feel intangible. I found it difficult to imagine a baby living within my body, even though I was so acutely aware of each of my child’s movements in the womb. Being pregnant can feel like an invasion. It is utterly exhausting literally building another body inside ones own.
Within this collage I am play with the idea of the problematics of imagining a child that is invisible to ones self and too others. The self is one and another, baby and mother. I am imagine playing with a child, the baby within has become my child’s drawing.
The developing pregnancy could be compared to the emergence of language itself. A language, a relationship between baby and mother begins inside the womb and continues to develop outside of the womb.
This relationship starts as fleeting movements within. Then sharing the babies kicks with family members by them placing their hands on my belly. These memories are so tender, how quickly they are forgotten with the intensity of parenting outside of the womb.