COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROJECTS
Through research, I locate symmetries between historical moments and contemporary experience. Each project builds on a past narrative that questions future directions in thought provoking ways.
THE HIDDEN MOTHERS
44 colour and monochrome C-type prints with 22 texts. 2023-2024
During the late 19th-century, the trend in studio photography portraits of infants was booming.
However the photographic process required the subject to sit still for several minutes. To get around this, the infant's mother was concealed in fabric, disguised as furniture while holding the baby steady. The resulting images have come to be known as 'hidden mother' photography.
When I recovered from my first pregnancy I was also coming to terms with my first experience of Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG). A severe pregnancy illness affecting women of all ages and backgrounds, its symptoms include constant nausea, vomiting, and dehydration. It leaves the mother distraught after months of physical and emotional turmoil. HG has gone virtually unrecognised by the medical establishment despite an estimated 30,000 suffering from it every year in the UK.
HG, and the lack of clinical care provision, has resulted in terminations, prohibited choice and has been associated with depression leading to suicide.
The Hidden Mothers is a participatory project with HG sufferers. Based on archival research it uses the Victorian 'hidden mother' visual metaphor for how its participants have felt during their pregnancies. The photographed creative act helps distance the participant from her experience, providing a powerful cathartic perspective, while contributing to the message: we won't be hidden anymore.
Selected works from The Hidden Mothers have been presented at the Houses of Parliament, London, UK, in collaboration with the charity Pregnancy Sickness Support, at the International Colloquium on Hyperemesis Gravidarum 2024, California, USA, in collaboration with the charity HER Foundation, and acquired by the Birth Rites Collection, the first and only collection of contemporary art on the subject of childbirth.
The first full exhibition of The Hidden Mothers was presented at Science Gallery London, supported by One King's Impact.
FAYE
I suffered with HG during both my pregnancies − a single pregnancy and then with
multiples. It is such a lonely illness. You feel that no-one really understands what you’re going through: not being able to get out of bed for days; for smells that usually bring you such comfort to suddenly be repulsive; to be so sick that you can’t make any decisions. You can’t see it ever ending.
This is not the morning sickness everyone tells you it is. This is your life now and there is nothing you can do about it. HG brings up such conflicting feelings. To want a pregnancy so much, to have longed for it, but to want it to end, to not have to feel this way, for life not to be like this. To just feel normal.
You’re told it’s worth it. And it is, of course. You’d do anything for your child. But when you’re in it, you don’t know that. It’s at such a cost to your mental and physical well-being. When I look back on that time I can’t quite believe I felt sick every single minute for every single day for 9 months. Because that’s the thing about HG. When you’re in it, it really is unbelievable.
MAKING CHANGE
Unveiling The Hidden Mothers: Empowering Change for Hyperemesis Sufferers.
Two special editions of the The Hidden Mothers book were produced and on display alongside selected photographic prints with their accompanying testimonies for the first time at the Houses of Parliament.
Unveiling The Hidden Mothers: Empowering Change for Hyperemesis Sufferers, was organised by the charity Pregnancy Sickness Support to highlight the continued lack of support for HG sufferers, made all the more urgent following the tragic loss of Jess and Elsie Cronshaw.
With many key stakeholders, including the Cronshaw family were in attendance, along with MP Sara Britcliffe and Minister for Women’s Health Strategy Maria Caulfield MP who both spoke at the event.
Maria Caulfield’s speech affirmed that “We are absolutely determined in the next 12 months to make progress” with HG specifically being put on the women’s health strategy. “This shows that government is taking this extremely seriously and we want to work hand in glove with you to better identify women who are affected and then help get through pregnancy”.
GETTING SEEN
The Hidden Mothers exhibitions and community.
As important as they all are, it just isn't possible to tell every mother’s story.
So I set up @thehiddenmothers Instagram community so that we could share our stories and women can take their own Hidden Mothers selfie too. #hiddenhg
EXHIBITIONS
Unveiling The Hidden Mothers: Empowering Change for Hyperemesis Sufferers. Houses of Parliament, with Pregnancy Sickness Support. UK.
International Colloquium on Hyperemesis Gravidarum 2024, with HER Foundation. USA.
The Hidden Mothers. Science Gallery London, supported by One King’s Impact. UK.
The Curse of the Blessing. DNJ Gallery, with HER Foundation. USA.
COLLECTIONS
The Birth Rites Collection, UK.
NEWS
PhotoVoice (online article), October 2024. UK.
BBC News London Live (television, online article), June 2025. UK
SUPPORT THE BOOK
The Hidden Mothers on GoFundMe.
Make a donation towards the production of the first run of The Hidden Mothers book, which I will send to maternity units across the UK to raise awareness of Hyperemesis Gravidarum.