Paper short abstract:

The Gallery of Obstetric Experiences is an ethnographic project whereby women use artistic experimentation to interrogate, process and represent their experiences of obstetric violence. What potentials and limitations does artistic expression bring to ethnographic fieldwork on perceptions of OV?

Paper long abstract:

The Gallery of Obstetric Experiences is a project whereby women use artistic experimentation to interrogate, process and represent their experiences of obstetric violence (OV). Its aim is to constitute a body of creative depictions of birth experiences that can be used to interrogate and explore personal experiences of childbirth with the people who create them, and to foster public discussion on the issue of OV, through communication and engagement with wider and non-academic audiences.

This presentation analyzes some of the first outcomes of the Gallery to explore what artistic expression can tell us about experiences of OV, while looking at the initial process of constitution of the Gallery to critically consider the use of collaborative artistic methodologies in activist ethnographic inquiry. I assess the use of artistic expression as a research method, exploring its potentials and shortcomings, without overlooking the issue of power relations between researcher and interlocutors in activist research. What are the challenges in this kind of endeavor? What contradictions must we face when engaging with art as a research method in ethnographic inquiry? What does art have that other tools don't? Is it an effective device to materialize perceptions of subjective and intimate experiences as are those of childbirth?