Visible Bodies

June - August 2024
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

Visible Bodies focused on themes of gender, care and the space of the reproductive and maternal body. The programme featured the Feeding Chair in Ikon’s Resource Room, alongside a month-long artist residency by Sally Butcher, a programme of public workshops and an audit of the gallery by New Baby Network CIC to help Ikon consider ways of welcoming feeding people and families.

Artist-in-residence Sally Butcher approached the residency through the lens of her practice-based research about experiences of infertility, creating performative text pieces that explore alternative meanings around the reproductive body.

Sally explained, ‘I’m drawn to Feed’s use of women’s stories to inspire the chair’s making and the fragmented audio narratives that sit around the body in the feeding space. Developing this interest in sharing lived experience, I created work using women’s words around (in)fertility that brings these women’s accounts together in a collective telling.’

As part of Ikon’s Creative Health programme, Visible Bodies contributed to a comprehensive evidence base, informing policy development for Birmingham City Council Public Health:

“The Feeding Chair provides an opportunity through the visual arts to discuss barriers to infant feeding with fresh eyes. As a society we don't openly discuss this essential part of raising a child and the way that public settings preclude parents from this important time with their child.” Dr Justin Varney, Former Director of Public Health, Birmingham City Council.

Work developed during the residency, alongside the Feeding Chair, will be re-presented as part of What are the odds? an Ikon Creative Health exhibition at the Library of Birmingham, which explores the role of art in supporting health and care systems.

Visible Bodies was supported by Birmingham City Council Public Health and Arts Council England.