Mother and Child

2025
Axminster yarn, polycotton & plywood, 171x80x10cm

Over the spring of 2025 artist Anna Perach worked with women who had experienced preterm birth. She conducted online and in person interviews and artistic workshops to explore the women's emotional perspectives on preterm birth, loss, the body, and how they experienced this sometimes traumatic event. 

The work  responds to the women describing their bodies as out of control and taking a "wrong turn on the train track" (as one of them described) as well as the fear of what might be happening inside the body or the anxiety of the body producing something that is "monstrous". The image I created emphasises the orifices of the body, the parts that connect between the inside and the outside of the body like the mouth and the vulva with some parts reverting the order between in and out and exposing the internal externally. Some of the women also discussed a desire to return to who they were pre-birth experience and the need to keep a "brave face" and remain in control. These elements are represented by the body being halved into pregnant and non-pregnant and the face portraying a "primal scream" when the mask of control is removed.

The work has been commissioned by Tommy’s National Centre for Preterm Birth Research, Imperial College, London and the Birth Rites Collection.