On Monday, September 7, MOTHER’S RIGHT—a conceptual installation and performance piece by artist Michelle Hartney—will take place from 12 to 2pm at the Richard J. Daley Center in Chicago, IL. Held in conjunction with Improving Birth’s Labor Day Rally, the piece is part of Hartney’s ongoing Obstetrics in America series—including Our Past and Birth Words—which addresses the United States’ high rates of maternal mortality, postpartum PTSD, and obstetric abuse. 
For the performance, Hartney is sewing 1,200 hospital gowns—one for every mother who died in childbirth in America in 2013. The folded gowns represent not only the 1,200 women who died during childbirth, but also the women who have suffered abuse at the hands of obstetricians and nurses, and for the increasing number of women who are being diagnosed with postpartum PTSD after giving birth. Each gown is hand silk-screened with the artist’s drawings of the plant derivatives for the drugs that have been used on laboring women for the past 150 years, composed to resemble traditional hospital gown fabric.
On Labor Day, several pairs of women will stand facing one other, folding the handmade gowns into triangles—similar to the way the American flag is folded at the funeral of a solider. The traditional flag-folding ceremony includes twelve symbolic folds, with the ninth fold symbolizing womanhood. These custom-made hospital gowns have been cut to a length where the fabric stops on the ninth fold. To support the project, in addition to a successful Kickstarter campaign which launched on Mother’s Day, MOTHER’S RIGHT necklaces and limited edition framed, 6 x 6 inch tondos are available.
DATE + TIME
Monday, September 7, 12-2pm
LOCATION
Richard J. Daley Center
50 West Washington Street
Chicago, IL 60602