Helen Knowles
Cherry Tree, 2008
Artist Book
21 x 37 cm

Between September and December 2005, Helen worked at Cherry Tree Hospital in Stockport with elderly patients to explore their experiences of childbirth. She spent a lot of time sitting and talking to the men and women, some of whom were close to death and others who were in there to give respite to their carers. It was a challenging and emotional experience for those involved. The interviews were transcribed, sometimes recorded and at times the participants wrote down their own experiences.

In addition to the verbal and written responses Helen taught the participants to mono-print. She brought in a variety of images from neo-lithic rock carvings of fertility goddesses to contemporary images of women giving birth.  The participants used these to create their own prints.

Following the 8 sessions with the Cherry Tree residents Helen took the various created components to Hotbed Press in Salford where she used screen printing to collate the material into an artist book.

Helen Knowles
Cocks Comb, 2008
Artist Book
30 x 30 cm

In this book Helen Knowles manipulated the images made by young mothers from Salford Women’s Centre during a workshop series exploring their experiences of childbirth. In one session, Knowles concentrated on the language the girls used for their bodies. Two mothers were asked to lie on a large sheet of paper, while another drew around them. The girls were asked to write in one of the outlines the words they used to describe the different parts of the body. They were then asked to fill in the other outline with the medical terms they knew. It became apparent that they didn't know the terminology doctors and midwives commonly use when discussing childbirth with pregnant women, indicating a serious failure in communication with the young woman and their health attendants. To complete the diagram they leafed through a pile of childbirth guides transcribing any anatomical terms they came across. Knowles contrasted the mothers colloquial descriptions of their bodies with text from a book by Jane Sharp, a 17th century midwife, who described the reproductive body, conception, sex and childbirth with explicit, poetic and sexually open language.

Helen Knowles
Land of Endless Statues, 2008
Artist Book
21 x 35 cm

Helen Knowles created this book working with St Anne’s RC Primary School in Ancoats, Manchester. The sessions began by talking about how the first humans were created. The children described their own, and their families, ideas, speaking about evolution and Adam and Eve. They were then read creation myths from around the world including a Teutonic myth, the birth of Buddha from Queen Maya's side, the Greek myth of Prometheus creating the first man, and a story from Mozambique about the god Muluku.

The children modeled these stories in clay helped by ceramicist Jane Knowles. The sculptures were fired and documented photographically. Phoebe Mortimer wrote a children’s story directly inspired by these sessions, whereby a young girl wakes up in a landscape of endless statues and has to decide which creation myths she belongs to. This story is illustrated by a landscape drawn and screen printed by Helen Knowles interspersed with the children’s own images.