Call for Proposals: Birthing Time
Birthing Time
September-October 2024
Maya Ben David, Artist. Photograph by Lihi Amiztur Lobel
As befits a forced birth, the simultaneous processes of unravelling and creation are powerful, and they have thrown us off balance. The power struggle has taken the form of fierce battles of life or death.
There are four partners in the human birth process, one in which a spirit manifests itself in a body of flesh and blood: The fetuses and newborns, the mothers, the fathers and the professional teams.
Who are the partners in the birth of the new Israel?
Imagine a birth, your own birth, the birth of your new children, the birth of your family and of our country, the birth of shared schools. Dream of a democratic government and an ethical state, a life of communities where parks and beaches are open to all.
Let's dream up the next birth!
_____
You are invited to submit existing or new works (priority will be given to new ones)
in a written proposal explaining the idea of the work and the context to the topic, along with several images or a sketch, to artcenter@artcenter.org.il
Deadline for submitting proposals: May 15, 2024
Curator of the exhibition: Anat Lidror | Initiator and partner: Hagit Ben-Shahar
About Givat Haviva Art Gallery
'Birthing time' is a period of time that begins with the formation of the fetus (and even before), continues with pregnancy and birth, and ends a few weeks after birth. This is a very charged chapter for human society, a converging point of expectations, longings, fears, popular beliefs, pain, hopes, disappointments, family and personal memories. It is full of emotional upheavals and extreme experiences shared by the four partners and their human circles.
The embryonic phase is a miraculous process in which the soul weaves the physical body that will carry it on its journey on earth. A process that begins with two sex cells and ends with a tiny and whole human being.
The way we receive our new babies does not recognize the essence and depth of this tremendous wonder.
The patriarchal code placed the weight of bringing new life, heirs to the ruling men, exclusively on the women. Men appropriated the sexuality and fertility of their wives and daughters as their own. They even sealed the fate of the mothers in a painful birth that sometimes cost them their lives. The status of women was determined by the number of sons they bore to their husbands.
Now that the patriarchal era is coming to an end, we get to see families and births based on new codes.
In the 1970s, the doors of the delivery rooms were opened to the fathers.
What does a "new father" encounter in a space that until recently was the realm of women only?
Society's attitude towards its new members, towards women and men, also dictates its attitude towards the support teams themselves. The enormous tensions under which they work every day determine destinies. As those who are entrusted with supporting the mother (and her baby) during birthing time, members of the medical staff are messengers of the society in which they operate. What does a society look like that lovingly welcomes its new members? What is the face of a society that supports the new parents and the members of the medical staff?
What does the birth of such a society look like?
Hagit Ben-Shahar, therapist specializing in birth-related trauma and relationships
Anat Lidror, curator of the Givat Haviva Art Gallery