Paper short abstract:

The birth of a child brings abrupt changes and different form of crises with it. This audio visual project explores how the process of becoming a parent impacts the way time and space are perceived.

Paper long abstract:

Often, we connotate something rather negative to the concept of crisis. Instead of looking at crisis as something tragic, we like to connotate it to a positive event: the birth of our child. An arrival which disrupted our lives on many different levels, an event which putted us in different crises even before taking place.

In this cooperative audio visual project we explore how the arrival of a child can impact the life of a parent, in other words: how becoming a parent changes the perception of time and space. What dimension does the space acquire? How is the time perceived? This project aims to explore these two dimensions from the parent's perspective.

Through the editing process, that is through the assemblage of images, sound and music (recorded and produced during the pregnancy period and after our child's birth), we attempt to reconstruct a specific narrative. We recognize the importance of an open approach to give space to memories and connected sensations and feelings, as we believe that the process of becoming parents is rather an embodied experience than a mere observation. We also do not follow a specific chronology but rather like to build it around the narrative as it manifests itself through the editing process.

About the authors:

Gregor Frei is a musician and composer and Saada Elabed a visual anthropologist. Together they are parents to one child since little more than one year.