Image: Badland, 2021
Video Installation, video in loop length 4 mins, mp4, cell phone with a power cable and earphones, table/a shelf, bowl, a spoon, Chinese instant soup.

Marta Stysiak ‘Come Home’ 2021

As part of the residency awarded to Marta Stysiak for winning the 2020 BRC Biennial Competition for New Work, Stysiak has extended her video installation BADLAND (which was acquired by BRC in 2020) into a feature length documentary called ‘Come Home’. Birth Rites Collection was granted an Arts Council England award to cover the cost of Stysiak spending time in-situ with the midwifery department at KCL online, attending relevant classes, holding workshops with students and interviewing and filming members of staff and students around the subject of young mothers / mental health / incarceration.

Stysiak carried out workshops with students to show them a draft of the documentary film ‘Come Home’ (50 minutes) to receive feedback as it was being made. She used this feedback to shape the film and also interviewed key academic members of staff to ask questions like:

• The problem of early motherhood: is it really a problem?

• Do social institutions work properly?

• Who should help young mothers?

• What could the social youth center or a foster home offer instead? Can they really offer anything, or is it just an illusion? What is the relation between early motherhood and social development in general?

‘Come Home’ Premiere

On Monday, 8th November 2021 we premiered ‘Come Home’ at the Harris Lecture Theatre, Guy’s Campus, King’s College, London, SE1 1UL. After the screening, Marta Stysiak was joined by Dr Elsa Montgomery and Professor Sir Jonathan Howard for a Q & A session.

This artist residency was supported by Birth Rites Collection and Arts Council England.