PUBLICATIONS
"Sending Baby Dust to You All" in Studies in the Maternal Journal (MAMSIE)
"Sending Baby Dust to you All..."
Abstract: My ongoing interdisciplinary practice-based PhD research considers ways in which understandings of (In)fertility are manifested within the texts of women in personally led online forum spaces and the bigger hidden narratives around these fragments. Looking at (dis)embodiment through language within artistic practice, it considers alternative linguistic interpretations of this dis-ease within and against authoritative medicalised rhetoric and asks what other semantics can emerge in dialogue here. This seeks to reimagine(In)fertile Embodiment through creative feminist praxis, within non-normative “sub-maternal” subjectivities and temporalities, traversing intersections of invisibility and silence through formulations of absence and its material presence. Emerging experiments, as discussed in this article, embrace an embodied methodology of hope and failure, interspersing words and images, text and matter, through interpretations of textual metaphor and data visualisation. The research seeks to engage audiences emotionally around this stigmatised reproductive discourse and assert its re-presentation within a new “maternal spectrum”, expanding the parameters of maternal art and beyond.
Abstract: My ongoing interdisciplinary practice-based PhD research considers ways in which understandings of (In)fertility are manifested within the texts of women in personally led online forum spaces and the bigger hidden narratives around these fragments. Looking at (dis)embodiment through language within artistic practice, it considers alternative linguistic interpretations of this dis-ease within and against authoritative medicalised rhetoric and asks what other semantics can emerge in dialogue here. This seeks to reimagine(In)fertile Embodiment through creative feminist praxis, within non-normative “sub-maternal” subjectivities and temporalities, traversing intersections of invisibility and silence through formulations of absence and its material presence. Emerging experiments, as discussed in this article, embrace an embodied methodology of hope and failure, interspersing words and images, text and matter, through interpretations of textual metaphor and data visualisation. The research seeks to engage audiences emotionally around this stigmatised reproductive discourse and assert its re-presentation within a new “maternal spectrum”, expanding the parameters of maternal art and beyond.
26/11/2024
Leafing through pages of a fertility forum, I unearth an extensive archive of women’s words. Years of fragmented personal narratives on living through infertility; electronic messages sent, posted, and received in a metaphorical exchange between an offline individual body and the online collective body.
But like many archives, this one gathers its dust; a substance conventionally associated with dirt that we often try to ignore or remove. From fine elements frequently transferring from the body’s surface mixing with everyday household particles, that pose real risks for the longevity of historical materials, through to industrial airborne byproducts from which our bodily exposure must be protected to avert the effects of its own lasting physical damage, caused by potential disease.
Infertility is officially defined as a disease,1 an identity Sandelowski and de Lacey claim has been perpetuated by the advent of IVF in 1978, posing this treatment as its cure.2 In this sterile medical arena any excess dust must also be eradicated. But in this vast virtual archive, away from the clinical site of infertility, there is a special type of ‘baby dust’ that has been permitted to settle; a “harmless” constituent, mere representations of good luck frequently endowed upon, or requested from, others enveloped in this circuitous pursuit of conception. Scattered through the pages of correspondence, it is often written into an opening plea or a simple signing off, to be read by an unknown recipient encouraged to respond. Should we also just brush off this mystical metaphor, swiftly discarding its light whimsical way of describing such a weighted process? These dust particles are not just small, rather completely invisible, undoubtedly more easily overlooked but far from meaningless. Indeed, this magical powder can be said to hold wish granting power when bestowed upon others, delivering significant beliefs in good fortune.
But this brings its own dangers; contributing to a harmful culture that many women experiencing infertility can find themselves swept up in, where they are led to believe that if they just wish hard enough (perhaps if they really want it enough?!), then it will happen. Language here is important, and these viewpoints need to be observed closely. I would like to speculate, however, that if we dust carefully, we may find lost information within these throwaway lines that warrants deeper examination.
I want to investigate whether this imaginary substance also comes heavy with hope, a real symbol of these women’s reproductive desires for the presence of (an)other, that resides beneath the maternal wish accruing on the surface. I want to explore gaps in meaning that open up through this figurative language; what important embodied knowledges are revealed within this seemingly insignificant metaphor that may provide distance from an (unspeakable) truth – of real hope; of the loss of hope; of the loss of something that never was and that may never be. I am not speaking here of literal loss, shrouded in grief and earthly ashes – dust to dust – but one which may have no representation. I am intrigued by the reality of embodying such rhetorical constructions in the development of new (in)fertile narratives that complexify a binary between a normal and an abnormal body in pursuit of the maternal. My practice-led research builds knowledge making through meaningful modes of inquiry between text and matter within creative practice,3 exploring tensions of representation within infertility – a condition that is, itself, inherently invisible.....
Read full text here
Volume 14 • Issue 1 • 2024 • Special Issue: Visceral Bodies
This article has been peer reviewed.
Butcher, S., (2024) “"Sending baby dust to you all..."”, Studies in the Maternal 14(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/sim.11189
But like many archives, this one gathers its dust; a substance conventionally associated with dirt that we often try to ignore or remove. From fine elements frequently transferring from the body’s surface mixing with everyday household particles, that pose real risks for the longevity of historical materials, through to industrial airborne byproducts from which our bodily exposure must be protected to avert the effects of its own lasting physical damage, caused by potential disease.
Infertility is officially defined as a disease,1 an identity Sandelowski and de Lacey claim has been perpetuated by the advent of IVF in 1978, posing this treatment as its cure.2 In this sterile medical arena any excess dust must also be eradicated. But in this vast virtual archive, away from the clinical site of infertility, there is a special type of ‘baby dust’ that has been permitted to settle; a “harmless” constituent, mere representations of good luck frequently endowed upon, or requested from, others enveloped in this circuitous pursuit of conception. Scattered through the pages of correspondence, it is often written into an opening plea or a simple signing off, to be read by an unknown recipient encouraged to respond. Should we also just brush off this mystical metaphor, swiftly discarding its light whimsical way of describing such a weighted process? These dust particles are not just small, rather completely invisible, undoubtedly more easily overlooked but far from meaningless. Indeed, this magical powder can be said to hold wish granting power when bestowed upon others, delivering significant beliefs in good fortune.
But this brings its own dangers; contributing to a harmful culture that many women experiencing infertility can find themselves swept up in, where they are led to believe that if they just wish hard enough (perhaps if they really want it enough?!), then it will happen. Language here is important, and these viewpoints need to be observed closely. I would like to speculate, however, that if we dust carefully, we may find lost information within these throwaway lines that warrants deeper examination.
I want to investigate whether this imaginary substance also comes heavy with hope, a real symbol of these women’s reproductive desires for the presence of (an)other, that resides beneath the maternal wish accruing on the surface. I want to explore gaps in meaning that open up through this figurative language; what important embodied knowledges are revealed within this seemingly insignificant metaphor that may provide distance from an (unspeakable) truth – of real hope; of the loss of hope; of the loss of something that never was and that may never be. I am not speaking here of literal loss, shrouded in grief and earthly ashes – dust to dust – but one which may have no representation. I am intrigued by the reality of embodying such rhetorical constructions in the development of new (in)fertile narratives that complexify a binary between a normal and an abnormal body in pursuit of the maternal. My practice-led research builds knowledge making through meaningful modes of inquiry between text and matter within creative practice,3 exploring tensions of representation within infertility – a condition that is, itself, inherently invisible.....
Read full text here
Volume 14 • Issue 1 • 2024 • Special Issue: Visceral Bodies
This article has been peer reviewed.
Butcher, S., (2024) “"Sending baby dust to you all..."”, Studies in the Maternal 14(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/sim.11189
