How was the Birth?
exhibitions
How was the Birth?
2023
Medical screen, found quilts, paper tags, safety pins
Currently on view at MK Calling at MK Gallery, 2024, Milton Keynes until 29th Sept 2024
Touring to The GRAM, Prague, November 2024
Previously installed at Spike Island, Spike Island Open Studios 2023
and The Garage residency, Bristol, 2023
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MK Calling - Information panel
Ellie Shipman is a visual artist living and working in Bristol. Ellie studied BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art (2008 - 11) and MSc Sustainable Development in Practice at UWE (2015 - 16).
Ellie is interested in drawing out commonalities between people around themes of sustainability, community, urban change and what it means to be a womxn. She does so through mixed media participation, sculpture, textiles and collage. Following the birth of her son in 2021 Ellie’s practice has been exploring birth, the complexities of m/otherhood and hidden womxn’s labour.
How was the Birth? aims to shed light on the diversity of the birth experience, simultaneously acknowledging the impossibility of summarising it in one word alongside the vast range of possible birth experiences. The medical screen has had its curtains replaced with hand sewn quilts, drawing parallels between the careful stitches created in domestic and medical environments - both hidden identifiers of womxn’s labour. In inviting viewers to add their own word responding to their birth experience, the piece asks what is revealed, passed down and kept hidden between generations of birthing people.
If you have experienced birth please take a tag and add your own word to the artwork.
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If you would like to take part in this ongoing project you can write your word on paper and upload a photo of it via this form.