Birth Rites Collection Summer School 2026

The world's only contemporary art collection dedicated to childbirth invites you to a programme of lectures, workshops, seminars and one-to-one tutorials.

This Year’s theme: Reproduction and the State

How do artists contest dominant narratives of birth and maternity? Whose bodies are heard, treated and believed in maternal healthcare? How do states instrumentalise reproduction through policy, imagery and ideology? How can the maternal become a site of resistance and reimagining?

Led by artist and BRC Curator Dr Helen Knowles and artist Dr Leni Dothan, the course brings you into dialogue with the collection, this year's themes, and your own practice. You'll leave with bespoke visual, textual, auditory, photographic, filmic or performative work to carry into your future practice.

This year, participants gain exclusive access to a curated selection of works from the collection not ordinarily available to the public, presented in a dedicated online space.

Workshops explore the aesthetic, ethical, political and visual discourses of birth through text, film and performance. Lectures from leading artists and academics open up the following themes:

• Institutional bias in maternal healthcare — race, class, and the politics of care

• Pronatalism, border regimes, and reproductive justice

• The Collection's impact on feminist art and the visual history of birth

• Censorship, ethics and the law around artworks on birth

• How the Collection can shape practice and policy in midwifery, medicine and education

• Open to midwives, artists, academics, curators, medics, health professionals, art historians, policy advisors — and anyone engaged with childbirth through the lens of art.

2026 speakers include: Sarah Sudhoff, Andrea Khora, Helen Knowles and Leni Dothan, with more announced soon.

Any questions? Read our FAQs for more information about the BRC Summer School

Download the Summer School Flyer

Five-Week Course (Online):

Dates: Wednesdays, 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM BST July 1,8,15, 22, 29 & Saturday 18, 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM BST. All lectures, workshops, and discussions will take place online. 

Cost: 600 GBP per person 450 GBP Concession Rate.

A 100GBP deposit is required to secure a place for the course. There is one bursary place available. For more information please email helen@birthrites.org.uk