Sarah A Bendall (Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, ACU): ‘Stays Confine the Belly? Investigating Maternal Experience in Early Modern Europe with Recreative Practice’
Drawing on the recently named ’embodied turn’ which describes recreative practice as a research methodology, this paper discusses the process of reconstructing two extant European foundation garments (bodies and stays) associated with maternity from the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries to explore the range of possibilities presented for the pre-and post-partum body. It explores how object-based approaches to history, as well as recreative practice, allow us to access information about the past embodied experiences of women.
This event is part of the series ‘A Material World: Gender’, which brings together academics and heritage professionals from a wide range of disciplines to discuss issues concerning historical objects, their materials, forms, and functions, as well as their conservation, presentation, display, and reconstruction.
Organisers: Rembrandt Duits (Deputy Curator, The Photographic Collection, The Warburg Institute) and Louisa McKenzie (The Warburg Institute).
All sessions during 2023-2024 will be delivered online.
FREE VIA ZOOM WITH ADVANCE BOOKING: https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/material-world-bendall-2023
Image: Wiki Commons
