A Womb with a View

Author

Briauna Marie Falk, Bard CollegeFollow

Date of Submission

Spring 2018

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Photography

Project Advisor 1

David Bush

Abstract/Artist's Statement

I found my mother’s pregnancy diary when I was 12. The diary presents not only the story of my origin, but also the story of how my biological father left my mother. The diary gave me insight into what unfolded while I was growing inside her, and yet, many questions still remain unanswered. I have heard that trauma experienced by the mother is felt in utero alongside her – I worry one of the first feelings I felt was true sadness. Ideally the diary could answer my unresolved questions, but instead I am left to my imagination. The diary cannot tell me if I look more like my father or my mother. The diary cannot show me the look on my mother’s face when my father hung up the phone. The diary cannot give me a taste of my father’s love. To try to answer the ambiguities of my birth, I decided to imagine, to fabricate, and to revisit a place I can never see or know, but could feel while in utero. The photographs I produced are at times fantastical, and offer instead an imagined emotional landscape rather than a faulty recreation of actual events. When I play my mother and biological father’s roles, I embody their physiognomy and the decisions they made. In doing so, I attempt to understand where I came from and who I am.

Open Access Agreement

Open Access

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Falk, Briauna Marie, "A Womb with a View" (2018). Senior Projects Spring 2018. 386.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2018/386