Birth Rites Col­lec­tion Sum­mer School

Birth Rites Col­lec­tion Sum­mer School 2025

The Sum­mer School is a unique pro­gramme of lec­tures, work­shops, sem­i­nars and one-to-one tuto­ri­als around the Birth Rites Col­lec­tion, the world’s first and only con­tem­po­rary art col­lec­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the sub­ject of childbirth.This inten­sive pro­gramme will intro­duce you to the col­lec­tion and facil­i­tate a dia­logue between you, your prac­tice, this year’s themes and the artworks.

The course is led by artist and BRC Cura­tor, Helen Knowles and artist Dr. Leni Dothan, with guest lec­tures from lead­ing artists in the field. The course will empow­er you to artic­u­late your own prac­tice and respons­es to the col­lec­tion in a sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment whilst explor­ing crit­i­cal per­spec­tives in the field of birth.

Mid­wives, aca­d­e­mics, cura­tors, artists, medics, health pro­fes­sion­als, art his­to­ri­ans, pol­i­cy advi­sors and the gen­er­al pub­lic, who are inter­est­ed in child­birth through the lens of art, are all wel­come. As a par­tic­i­pant, you will enter the course with your own skill set and fin­ish, with bespoke visu­al, filmic and/or per­for­ma­tive mate­r­i­al, to be used there­after in your own future work.

Work­shops include explor­ing the eth­i­cal, polit­i­cal and visu­al dis­cours­es of birth via text, film, and per­for­mance. Addi­tion­al­ly, this year, we present a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage with a curat­ed selec­tion of works from the col­lec­tion that are not ordi­nar­i­ly acces­si­ble to the public.

Themes include:
– Nav­i­gat­ing mortality—from preterm birth to post-partum
– Artis­tic respons­es to preterm birth.
– How the col­lec­tion informs and unpacks dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives in mid­wifery, med­i­cine and edu­ca­tion, and its poten­tial to improve prac­tice and policy.
– The Collection’s impact on fem­i­nist art prac­tices and the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of visu­al dis­cours­es of birth into art history.
– Cen­sor­ship of art­works on birth, insti­tu­tion­al respons­es, ethics and the law

Speak­ers include: Grisel­da Pol­lock (online keynote), Anna Per­ach, Han­nah Con­way, Court­ney Con­rad, Cather­ine Williamson, Andrea Kho­ra, Helen Knowles and Leni Dothan, with more announced soon.

We offer two modal­i­ties for this course: one in per­son, as an inten­sive four-day pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kent, and one week­ly online course over four weeks, that par­tic­i­pants can join from any­where in the world.

Four-day course (in-per­son):
Dates: July 7–10, 10–5pm BST (with some late evenings)
Loca­tion: Uni­ver­si­ty of Kent, Can­ter­bury, Unit­ed Kingdom
Cost: £650 per per­son / £500 con­ces­sion (for prac­tic­ing artists, stu­dents, and those with a low income).
Capac­i­ty: 15 places per course
Accom­mo­da­tion: On-cam­pus accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able at an addi­tion­al cost.

Four-week course (online):
Dates: Wednes­days, June 11– July 2, 7–9:30pm BST and Sat­ur­day, June 28, 2–5pm BST.
All lec­tures, work­shops, and dis­cus­sions will take place online.
Cost: £550 per per­son / £400 concession.

A £100 deposit is required to secure a place for either course.

To book your place vis­it: https://www.birthritescollection.org.uk/summer-school

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Birth Rites Collection’s Sum­mer School is a unique pro­gramme of lec­tures, work­shops, sem­i­nars and one-to-one tuto­ri­als. This inten­sive pro­gramme will intro­duce you to the col­lec­tion and facil­i­tate a dia­logue between you, your prac­tice, this year’s themes, and the art­works. The Birth Rites Col­lec­tion Sum­mer School is led by artist and BRC Cura­tor Helen Knowles and artist Dr. Leni Dothan. The course will empow­er you to artic­u­late your own prac­tice and respons­es to the col­lec­tion in a sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment whilst explor­ing crit­i­cal per­spec­tives in the field of birth.

BRC_SUMMERSCHOOL_2025_withlinks

More Info and book­ing: https://www.birthritescollection.org.uk/summer-school

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The 16th MAYS Annu­al Meet­ing „Plur­al per­spec­tives and evolv­ing prac­tices in Med­ical Anthropology”
Tilburg (Nether­lands)
June 30th-July 2nd 2025.
Dead­line: 04.07

Details: Attached to this email you can find the Call for Papers, or you can vis­it our web­site!

Found­ed in 2009, MAYS EASA works to sup­port a grow­ing diverse net­work of more than sev­er­al hun­dred ear­ly-career researchers, based main­ly from Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tu­tions, who share a com­mon inter­est in med­ical anthropology.

We invite you to sub­mit an abstract of no more than 350–500 words at the link below by April 7th and, upon accep­tance, a con­fer­ence paper of 3,000–5,000 words by June 1st. 

Noti­fi­ca­tions of accep­tance will be sent by the mid­dle of April.
To cov­er basic expens­es, we ask for a 30 EUR par­tic­i­pa­tion fee for in-per­son participants.

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