I have been using storytelling of my personal experience of motherhood as a centrifugal point in my practice since 2020, and through autobiographical storytelling I open the pathway for others to question and share their own experiences of when motherhood is challenging, problematic, disrupted or impacted by health. 

UK figures suggest that 28,000 women per year suffer from PTSD after traumatic birth, and women are at least 15% more likely to suffer from post-natal depression after caesarean section. Obstetric violence is linked to increased depression, lower birth-rates, and PTSD. Before my own experience, I had no idea it existed – and that this violence can be enacted on you in the process of care and saving you and your child’s life. Currently in Norway there is increasing attention to the disparity of maternal care offered, and dialogues around mental health and the effects of this reduction in care need voicing.

Ever since I can remember I have been interested in stories of human experiences. The issue I was now facing was how to tell this story, when I couldn’t talk about it. The narratives during illness have no linear start or end, all the issues are happening simultaneously – and whilst in chaos, linear story telling is impossible or scrambled. However, via my practice I found that having the distance of art production and allowing the work to cover the then, now, and in-between I was able to organise and reinvestigate chaotic narratives. 

I have been focusing on mediums which enable immediacy and the unrehearsed which enable me to both share and revisit, in both a poetic and affecting way. There is a back and forth possible with clay and video in particular; to catch a moment and an interaction with memory and present. Where both times can be in flux and visualised, and thus organised. 

The use of matter - material voice collaborations, in my practice is firmly rooted and is used as a mirror to visualise the emotive and create affect through multidisciplinary practices including clay and ceramics, instillation, sculpture, video, and drawing. 

How people experience and understand clay socially is used as a tool to articulate human experiences. For example, my sabotage of the “beautiful”, technologically advanced, and aspirational porcelain in various works. I aim to disrupt these associations and cause chaos in our perception and senses. Collaboration between clay’s agency and its constructed social meanings are often used in my work. Clay has an amazing ability to capture moments and contain emotion because of its malleable nature, whilst allowing contradictions to appear in its duality - stability and instability. This allows emotive unities, fractures, and disruptions to be embodied. 

Corrina Thornton
Assistant Professor in the focus area of Ceramics and clay, KMD.