Birth Rites Collection

Matt Collier, 2009,
Pencil on Paper, 176 x 140cm

This drawing was made from looking at various historically well known anatomical illustrations. The nature of the drawing itself takes on the diagrammatical authority in which scientific ‘truth’ is established in its viewing. This strategy is the heart of how we view the scientifically truthful, versus fantastical visualisations today. The layering -and accumulating- of the various images intend to highlight the debate on viewing the body at different points in one image - as this problem of anatomical accuracy in science developed. As well as highlighting the potential manipulation of science on the body to rearrange and reorganise the body. The method of drawing chosen attempts to objectify the high emotionally charged area of child birth; in the thought that these two humans are entwined, striving to live. The period of the source material (C.1770) is at a point of radical change in obstetrics, when the mortality rate for child and mother were extremely high.