Above: New Mothers’ Assembly in progress, Surgeons’ Hall Museums, Edinburgh. Image credit: Lyndsay Mann, 2019.

New Mothers’ Assembly, 2019.

New Mothers’ Assembly (NMA) took place at Surgeons’ Hall Museums, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh over 6 weeks in 2019. NMA began as a series of weekly art and conversation workshops I devised and facilitated for first-time, new mothers with a child under 1 year.

Shaped by my interests in voice, authority and uncertainty, New Mothers’ Assembly considered institutional practices of maternal healthcare through patient experiences. Research began with materials from the Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA) held at the Univeristy of Edinburgh.

The project developed with Surgeons’ Hall Museums. Participants were invited to reflect on their recent experiences of pregnancy and birth in response to historical maternity artefacts from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Wohl Pathology Collection.

Objects became conduits for deeply personal conversations.

Situating women and babies within specialist environments not commonly associated with, or seemingly accessible to carers with new borns, one session was also held at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.

Workshops explored historical narratives of childbirth and current experiences of new mothering. Topics for making and talking were developed with those taking part.

New Mothers’ Assembly was made possible due to the kind support of Creative Scotland; University of Edinburgh; Surgeons’ Hall Museums, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.

Other aspects of this research include:

University of Edinburgh Covid-19 Perspectives blogpost:

Women, midwifery and obstetrics during Covid-19.
By Lyndsay Mann, Jan 2021

‘Women, Midwifery and Obstetrics during Covid-19’ is a series of conversations with midwives and obstetricians who have personally experienced pregnancy and birth asking how their own experiences influence their clinical practices; about the individualities of working in a women-centred institutional environment; and how personal and professional perspectives may have shifted due to working practices and adjustments during Covid-19.

Full post here: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/covid19perspectives/2021/01/25/women-midwifery-and-obstetrics-during-covid-19-by-lyndsay-mann/
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(Re)producing Reproduction: Obstetrics, Midwifery & Mothering, Confabulations, June 2022

with Jessica Dandona, Vanessa Dion Fletcher and Lyndsay Mann

Confabulations: Art Practice, Art History, Critical Medical Humanities is a new series of urgent conversations on health, medicine, and medicalized bodies triangulating three areas of practice and scholarship, each with their own lineages, disciplinary ambits, and trajectories of remembering and forgetting.

Confabulations is co-convened by Fiona Johnstone (Durham Institute for Medical Humanities), Allison Morehead (Queen's University, Canada), and Imogen Wiltshire (University of Leicester). https://confabulationsdotorg.wordpress.com/ | twitter: @con_fabulations