Poppy Print-Green on Blue
Poppy Print-Green on Blue
Own a part of MOTHER'S RIGHT and support the production of this large scale installation and performance.
This is a swatch of hand silk-screened fabric that is being used to make the 1,200 hospital gowns for the MOTHER'S RIGHT installation and performance piece. The print was made from a drawing of a poppy flower, the plant derivative of morphine, which was used on laboring women, along with scopolamine, during twilight sleep, until it was deemed unsafe in the 1960's.
This limited edition piece will come in a 6 x 6 x .75 inch white wooden frame with a medium gloss finish. Each piece is signed, dated, and numbered. Edition of 10.
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MOTHER'S RIGHT
Maternal healthcare is in crisis in the United States. According to the World Health Organization, since 1995, the maternal mortality rate in the United States has increased 160%. African American women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than Caucasian women. The United States' maternal mortality rate is ranked at the top of developed countries. In 2013, eight countries reported an increase in maternal mortality rates. This list included countries such as war-torn Afghanistan, and the United States, which was the only developed country on the list. The United States spends three times more money on childbirth than Great Britain, yet our maternal mortality rate is over three times higher.
Along with local midwives, doulas, and volunteers, we sewed 1,200 hospital gowns, one for every mother who died in childbirth in America in 2013. The fabric was silk-screened to look like hospital gown fabric, composed of tiny drawings created of the plant derivatives of the drugs that have been used on laboring women for the past 150 years.
PERFORMANCE
For the performance, several pairs of women stood facing each other folding the gowns into triangles; similar to the way the American flag is folded at the funeral of a solider. The traditional flag folding ceremony includes twelve symbolic folds, with the ninth fold symbolizing womanhood. These hospital gowns have been cut to a length that allows the fabric to stop on the ninth fold. The folded gowns represent not only the 1,200 women who died during childbirth in the United States in 2013, but also the women who have suffered abuse at the hands of obstetricians and nurses, and for the increasing number of women who are being diagnosed with postpartum PTSD after giving birth.
The first performance took place on Labor Day, Monday, September 7th, 2015 at the Daley Plaza in Chicago in conjunction with Improving Birth's Labor Day Rally.