Birth shock: exploring pregnancy, birth and the transition to motherhood using participatory arts.

Natal Signs: Cultural Representations of Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting explores some of the ways in which reproductive experiences are taken up in the rich arena of cultural production. The chapters in this collection pose questions, unsettle assumptions, and generate broad imaginative spaces for thinking about representation of pregnancy, birth, and parenting. They demonstrate the ways in which practices of consuming and using representations carry within them the productive forces of creation. Bringing together an eclectic and vibrant range of perspectives, this collection offers readers the possibility to rethink and reimagine the diverse meanings and practices of representations of these significant life events. Engaging theoretical reflection and creative image making, the contributors explore a broad range of cultural signs with a focus on challenging authoritative representations in a manner that seeks to reveal rather than conceal the insistently problematic and contestable nature of image culture. Natal Signs gathers an exciting set of critically engaged voices to reflect on some of life’s most meaningful moments in ways that affirm natality as the renewed promise of possibility.Creative Practice as Mutual Recovery: Connecting Communities for Mental Health & Well-Being (AHRC Communities, Cultures, Health & Wellbeing Research Grants, Cross-council Programme). Consortia Bid of 1.5 million (co-investigator and stream lead) from 1/5/2013 (AHRC grant ref. AH/K003364/