Blighted Expectations & Still Hearts is a photographic reflection on two consecutive miscarriages I experienced in 2020.
An ambiguous narrative plays out from page to page: realization, anger, resignation, action, back to hurt and anger, acceptance and moving on.
The photographs at times have a direct relationship, almost a one for on comparison, where others posses an interpretive association through formalist aspects to imply meaning.
The double nature of the image layout across a book gutter, or blank space directly relates to the repeated experience of two miscarriages. The duality existing on the page creates a conversation from one image to the next. I look at what changed within me from one time to the next and how repeated loss of hope can stifle or release.
Expired color film creates a poetic link to life lost, or run its course. Yet it still works, albeit not to the original set standards of perfection. Despite limiting “best by” dates we still carry on.
The medical community as gate keepers of information and outdated language used in reference to miscarriage creates an unnecessarily damaging relationship with the process of miscarriage. For example, referring to a women’s womb as blighted associates the body with a barren wasteland; an area stripped of its ability to produce life. This analogy encourages a separation of the individual from the diagnoses, making it easier to treat the symptom and not the person. Further complicating this holistic relationship within the grieving mother is the health care systems ability to withhold information and tell half-truths. Medical personals are so concerned with litigation now that important or illuminating information is often withheld or glossed over. As ever, the right to information on women’s personal health is sought after commodity.