Tag: abortion

Conference talk: Contemporary Womxn’s Writing and the Medical Humanities, 31 July 2021, Institute of Modern Languages Research (IMLR), London, UK (online).

August 4, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Recently, I participated in a very diverse and intense three-day long conference about womxn’s writing and health humanities, put together by Rebecca Rosenberg (King’s College London) and Benjamin Dalton (Paris Nanterre University). While my own research obviously deals with abortion and sexual and reproductive rights in contemporary visual art, in this presentation I focused on art that employs language and narratives in conjunction with the visual.

The title was “Countering Abortion Stigma in Contemporary Art:  Activist Storytelling in Word and Image”, and you will find the abstract below.

For more information about the whole event, please visit its website.

Abstract: 

“Pregnancy termination is one of the most common medical procedures, yet abortion stigma persists in many countries. Along with the study of what exactly abortion stigma is, how it is produced, and what effects it generates, researchers and activists are trying to find ways to reduce or even to eradicate it. In this paper, I argue that contemporary visual arts are a critical means of challenging abortion stigma. Through a selection of case studies from the late 1980s to the present, I analyse ways in which contemporary artists have narrated and problematised this stigma in a range of socio-political contexts. My examples include Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Your Body Is A Battleground), created for the Women’s March on Washington DC in 1989; collages made by Aleksandra Mir in 2005; Tracey Emin’s strategic use of narrative to counter stigma by speaking out about her own abortion in both her autobiography and graphic art; Holly Pester’s 2018 poem Comic Timing, a work that addresses abortion in a like-wise personal, but mundane manner; and the collection of comics titled Comics for Choice (2017) published a group of artists, activists, and writers based in the United States. These works and art projects use innovative combinations of imagery and text to communicate the complexities of abortion and to give voice to different individual experiences. They also function in different spatial contexts and address audiences in unique ways. By showing how artists have tackled the theme of abortion and abortion stigma through a variety of intersecting visual and linguistic narratives, I demonstrate the importance of contemporary arts to public discourses about health care and medical thought.”

Conference talk: Contemporary Issues in Fertility Control, 19 November 2019, Bournemouth University (UK).

June 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments

On 19 November 2019 I gave a presentation at the event Contemporary Issues in Fertility Control, organised by Bournemouth University (UK), entitled: “Countering Abortion Stigma Through Contemporary Visual Art: Responding to Legal Restrictions”.

The event wished to examine the social, ethical, medical, policy and regulatory issues associated with all forms of fertility control.  It also addressed the role of disruptive technology, the shift to ex ante responses to reproductive choice and wider intersectional/ equality concerns surrounding fertility control.  It brought together a range of interdisciplinary perspectives and stakeholders, including policy makers, parent groups, health providers, clinicians and a wide range of academics.  The aim of the day was to identify new issues, future challenges and possible solutions for policy makers.

Other speakers were: Clare Murphy (Bpas), Rianna Raymond-Williams (Shine ALOUD UK), Jeffrey Wale (Bournemouth University), Dr. Samuel Walker (Bournemouth University), Prof. Sam Rowlands (Bournemouth University), and Claire Horn (Birbeck, University of London).

 

Abstract:

Event: (Re-)Imagining the Family – Reading Groups, 7 November and 8 November 2019, Palazzo Mora, Venice (IT).

October 21, 2019 / / 0 Comments

[Re-]Imagining the Family: Forms, Values, Planning and Alternatives.

In response to the Re-imagining Citizenship Activity Book (see details below), which is currently part of a display at the exhibition “Personal Structures – Identities” at Palazzo Mora in Venice, we will organise two reading group sessions. The meetings will create space for a public discussion of issues relating to family, family-related values, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Events such as the World Congress of Families conference that took place in Verona in March 2019, and the ongoing battle for access to safe and dignified family planning services in Italy and beyond, draw attention to ongoing questions of how the idea of the family – what it looks like, who gets to have one and when, and what types of family are legitimate – relate to contemporary political struggles. In light of such issues, both reading groups will seek to explore the concept of family today and how family values are being used as political leverage.

Over two days, we will meet at the Palazzo Mora (European Cultural Centre, Palazzo Mora, Strada Nuova #3659, 30121 Venice, Italy) to read, confer and reflect. The texts that will be examined closely together will be made available before the event, but there is no pressure to read anything beforehand. We will both read and discuss together on the day, and copies of the text will be made available. We will explore family ideals, values and gender/sexual politics through the following themes:

– Thursday 7th November, 15.00-18.00 – The role of the traditional family and declining birth rates in contemporary politics
(Facebook event page)
We will read and discuss:
* bell hooks, “Revolutionary Parenting”, Chapter 10 from her “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center”, Boston, MA: South End Press 1984,  p. 133-146.
Or DOWNLOAD AS PDF
* Jennifer Guerra, “L’ istinto materno non esiste: Non volere figli non è egoista” from The Vision, 17 March 2018.
Or DOWNLOAD AS PDF
* [Anon.], “The Observer View on Immigration Being the Answer to Falling Birth Rates: Observer Editorial”, from The Guardian, 4 August 2019.
Or DOWNLOAD AS PDF

– Friday 8th November, 15.00-18.00 – Abortion as part of family planning: access and societal stigma
(Facebook event page)
We will read and discuss:
* Holly Pester, “Comic Timing”, from Granta #144, 7 November 2018.
Or DOWNLOAD AS PDF
* Kara Fox and Valentina Di Donati, ” Abortion is a Right in Italy. For Many Women, Getting One is Nearly Impossible”, from CNN, May 2019.
Or DOWNLOAD AS PDF

The readings will not be overtly academic and theoretical: we will interrogate items from the news and creative writings, for example. No prior knowledge is required and the texts well be accessible at the events. The writings as well as the discussions will be both in English and Italian. All perspectives and backgrounds are welcome, and we hope to generate a debate that is intergenerational, respectful of difference and informed by the experiences of various cultural contexts. Participants are welcome to attend one or both sessions.

An audio-recording of the event will be made as a documentation for the Re-Imagining Citizenship Living Archive, but just let us know if you do not want to be a part of this.

Re-imagining Citizenship is an ongoing, collaborative project initiated by the Politicized Practice/Anarchism/Theatre Activism research groups based at Loughborough University, UK (https://pparg.net/). We are looking for collective redefinitions of citizenship that are not prescribed or closed down by the language of the media, but rather opened up by artistic methods.

The Re-imagining Citizenship Activity Book/Re-imagining Citizenship Living Archive forms part of this ongoing dialogue around themes related to art and political activism. Since 2014, artists, researchers and associates of the three research groups have organised exhibitions, installations, performances and participatory events to explore the potential for art practices to re-imagine citizenship. These culminated in a series of activities during in March 2019, including the production of the Re-imagining Citizenship Activity Book which has thirty different contributions, inviting readers to respond creatively to sets of instructions (using text, images, video or audio) and to upload them to the Living Archive on http://re-imagining.org/.

The reading groups are initiated and facilitated by Sophia Kier-Byfield (PhD researcher, Loughborough University), Tom Nys (PhD researcher, Loughborough University), and Altea Solari (medical student, University of Bologna).

National awareness campaign about abortion stigma (in relation to the 25th anniversary of the Belgian abortion law): the final result.

February 17, 2015 / / 0 Comments

In a previous post, I mentioned a national awareness campaign about abortion stigma I was working on with six Belgian photographers. It was organized by LUNA and IPPF Europe in relation to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Belgian law concerning pregnancy termination in 2015. We have now finished the project and I’m proud to present you the result:

National awareness campaign about abortion stigma (in relation to the 25th anniversary of the Belgian abortion law).

January 23, 2015 / / 2 Comments



The last months, I have been coordinating a project that perfectly combines my work in the arts with my interest and activism in sexual and reproductive rights. It is a national awareness campaign about abortion stigma, in relation to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Belgian law concerning pregnancy termination in 2015.

The actualization of this law came after a very long period of feminist activism, public debate and outrage, political procrastination, catholic obstruction and even a short but precarious constitutional crisis. Nowadays, Belgium has a solid system of easy access to safe abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy which is covered by health insurance. Moreover, it is one of the three countries with the lowest abortion rates worldwide. Still, the taboo persists.

On April 3 2015, LUNA and IPPF Europe, two associations in the field of abortion care and sexual and reproductive rights, jointly organize an international conference about abortion stigma in Brussels, in relation to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Belgian abortion law.

The primary aim of the conference is to introduce and discuss the issue of abortion stigma on several levels; the topic will be enclosed and highlighted from the perspective of women who had an abortion as well as from professionals working in abortion care. Furthermore, the prevalence and mechanisms of abortion stigma in different regional parts of the world will be discussed. Lastly, abortion stigma in Belgium will be tackled in relation to the 25-year old legislation, and a resolution with points for the (near) future in regard to abortion care will be presented to Minister of Health Maggie De Block. Thus, a current state of affairs in research and in practice will be given, which can be of interest for professionals, academics and activists as well as for people who are simply interested in this topic.

Speakers at the conference are dr. Anne Verougstraete, MD (Sjerp-Dilemma, VUB, Erasmus Hospital Brussels; chair woman), Vicky Claeys (IPPF Europe), prof. Piet Bracke (Dep. Sociology, UGent, Ghent), dr. Anu Kumar, PhD, MPH (Executive Vice President IPAS), Krystyna Kacpura (Executive Director Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning, ASTRA Network), Jon O’Brien (President Catholics for Choice) and Ann Furedi (Chief Executive BPAS).

Now, the campaign I came up with and organized for LUNA and IPPF, was inspired by the action “No More Names”, set up in 2012 by the English organization BPAS (British Pregnancy Advisory Service). Here, photos of various women were combined with the slogan “How do you call a woman who’s had an abortion ? Mother. Daughter. Sister. Friend. Abortion: no more names ” (more info can be found on abortionrights.org.uk/no-more-names-bpas-ad-campaign-aims-to-destigmatise-abortion).

For our version we have retained the basic idea of the BPAS campaign. However, we did not work with professional models but instead launched a call to Belgian women who had an abortion and who agree to be photographed. This call coincided with the Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion (Sept. 28th) and was immediately picked up by all important news outlets in Belgium. All portraits were taken by Belgian art photographer Charlotte Lybeer and a team of five young colleagues: Ulla Deventer, Eva Donckers, Vesna Faassen, Ingrid Leonard and Valentina Stellino. I am extremely grateful to these people for all their efforts and their commitment and I am stunned by the beauty and diversity of all the portraits.

At this moment, photographer and graphic designer Charlotte Boeyden is compiling the photos into an image, which will be combined with the slogan “25 years abortion law in Belgium – For your sister, your friend, your daughter, your colleagues, your mother“. This image will be distributed to the press and used for all activities around the conference organized in 2015.

Happy 2014!

January 4, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Here we are, in a new timeframe called 2014! Of course I would like to wish all of you loads of joy, luck, happiness, engagement and success during this year. As 2013 was, for me personally, full of wonderful and memorable events, the aim is evidently to continue the good vibe.

One of my intentions for the coming period is probably the same as the majority of bloggers has: to publicize MORE content on a MORE regular basis. So expect MORE reviews and texts about music records, concerts and dj shows, art, exhibitions and books.

So at the end of October 2013 I organized an exhibition in Antwerp with ten contemporary artists to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the legalization of the sale of and education about contraception in Belgium. The full text can be found here (in Dutch only). Now I also posted a series of images of that show. They were taken by Joeri Vanhamel and can be viewed on my portfolio pages.

This year I will maintain to study art that specifically deals with sexual and reproductive rights. Eventually this will lead to a book publication but first I will present a part of my research at a session of the Women’s Caucus for Art during the Annual Conference of the College Art Association (Feb. 12-15 in Chicago, IL, USA). The title of my presentation is: “Say Goodbye to Coat Hangers”: Abortion as a Theme in Contemporary Visual Arts and How it Can Reduce Abortion Stigma. I’ll keep you informed about this and will post an abstract later.

Furthermore you’ll still be able to find plenty of music reviews on this blog and I will continue to teach at the PXL-Music (school for pop and rock) in Hasselt (B) for the student of the second year of Music Management.

Meanwhile, we should not only hope the world will become a better place but also put some effort into making that happen!

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