nd photographer of the year 2020
Natalie Lennard united kingdom
title
Birth Undisturbed
The series blends famous birth philosophy together with history, culture and religion. ‘Aquadural’, shot underwater, depicts a woman alone giving birth in the ocean, to honour the history of waterbirth documented as early as 2700BC. In ‘The Creation of Man’ we witness the first photographic interpretation of the Virgin Mary graphically birthing Christ, the most famous freebirth of all time.
‘Royal Blood’ portrays Queen Elizabeth II giving birth to Prince Edward in 1964 in Buckingham Palace, to portray her little known legacy of being the first Royal to birth unobserved as well as break other conventions. 'Born of Calamity' frames the most famous heroine of the American Wild West, Martha Canary aka Calamity Jane, physiologically birthing in a Western town amidst the era's tumultous upheaval.
Moving from historical to modern, 'Call to Prayer' recreates a Pakistani Muslim family birthing in a 1990s British hospital to show how the Islamic ritual of the Adhan prayer being uttered immediately into the newborn's ear preserves familial space in an institutional setting as well as delay cord clamping for the benefit of infant health.
Each image in the series takes meticulous preparation, research and staging, shot with 100MP medium format and accompanied with short films that document the stories involved in each scene.
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entry description
Birth Undisturbed is a fictional narrative photography series bringing scenes of natural childbirth into cinematic fine-art tableaux. Spotlighting women of history from the Virgin Mary to the Queen, the series is partly inspired by the artist’s own experiences of birth, loss and motherhood, and is ever timely in a global maternity crisis that examines the need for a rebalance of the power dynamic in childbirth.The series blends famous birth philosophy together with history, culture and religion. ‘Aquadural’, shot underwater, depicts a woman alone giving birth in the ocean, to honour the history of waterbirth documented as early as 2700BC. In ‘The Creation of Man’ we witness the first photographic interpretation of the Virgin Mary graphically birthing Christ, the most famous freebirth of all time.
‘Royal Blood’ portrays Queen Elizabeth II giving birth to Prince Edward in 1964 in Buckingham Palace, to portray her little known legacy of being the first Royal to birth unobserved as well as break other conventions. 'Born of Calamity' frames the most famous heroine of the American Wild West, Martha Canary aka Calamity Jane, physiologically birthing in a Western town amidst the era's tumultous upheaval.
Moving from historical to modern, 'Call to Prayer' recreates a Pakistani Muslim family birthing in a 1990s British hospital to show how the Islamic ritual of the Adhan prayer being uttered immediately into the newborn's ear preserves familial space in an institutional setting as well as delay cord clamping for the benefit of infant health.
Each image in the series takes meticulous preparation, research and staging, shot with 100MP medium format and accompanied with short films that document the stories involved in each scene.
back to gallery
