ATTENDING A GENERAL INTEREST CONFERENCE OR WORKSHOP: ATTENDED BMH x CLTR Fest. (3 PTS.) ADRIANNA MORTON (C/O '27)

 

“We know that Black women-mothers and nonmothers-have been intrinsic to the activism of Black history.” - Michelle Cliff

    The BMH x CLTR Fest was an event curated by the Black Mammas Matter Alliance, a prominent Black reproductive justice organization, to showcase Black women and femme entrepreneurs, innovators, and artistic expressions. Grounded in period birthing justice, creativity, and maternal health equity, this event shed light on necessary reproductive health discourses across the diaspora. During the event, I engaged in 2 film screenings and 2 panel discussions with featured community organizers and/or directors. The first snippet was of PERIOD - a film directed by Joshua Nii Diromo, a filmmaker, and REPRA Health Co-founders, whose work established the connection between period equity for Ghanaian Black girls/menstruators, birth work/maternal health, and equity. I also watched a snippet of Me. (read me period), a film that highlights intergeneration conversation around reproductive health between Black mothers and their children. 

    As someone interested in storytelling and aspiring birth-worker/advocate, this event illuminated the necessary role of cultural work in health conversation, featuring dialogue amongst prominent film curators to community advocates and physicians. The space felt home-like and conversation-like solitude. During the event, I journeyed into curiosity and embraced the healing process of being surrounded by people who look like me already established in their endeavors, commune with one another in what seemed to be a mundane and communal task. A conversation that stood out to me was pertaining to the connection between period poverty and maternal health, understanding that the Black women’s bodies require us to first understand how our menstrual and reproductive health is decolonizing the Black female body. Particularly, in understanding our bodies outside of birth-giving, debunking cultural stigmas, policy-work, and other forms of image work to orient our work in ways that are community facing.

    Now, as I reflect on this experience, I am reminded of course concepts that I am currently engaging about the Black female body in the fine arts, namely Michelle Cliff’s concept of the ways Black female artists turn “object into subject.” I witnessed the decentering of the object, which reduces Black female bodies to their reproductive organs or birth giving, into a more nuanced conversation around agency, innovation, and creativity both as conversations and in action (as I engaged the other components of the event).  

- Adrianna Morton (C/O 2027)