Infinitely reflecting the viewer in an atmospheric neon mirror, a figurative trinity in labor boldly embrace one another across generations and gestational phases within a Double Consciousness Infinity Mirror. An aura of papaya, maroon and magenta light vibrates a triplet of pregnant figures as the viewer is infinitely reflected with the subject's image. 3 baths rituals conducted by doulas during and post pardum period are celebrated in Doula Nicky's maturing gestures towards her self. A foreground figure intensely fends off contractions while her birth partner offers soothing caresses. A zenith figure whose saturated stare is directed at the viewer, defends the trinity from the viewer's gaze as a guardian of her self and community regard.
Doula Nicky Dawkins conjures her ancestral dignity while in labor with the divine figure Queen Nanny of the Maroons as her guardian. Jamaican liberation theology honors the mythological strength of Queen Nanny protecting the Blue Mountain Maroons from colonial British and Spanish invaders during the first Maroon War 1728-1740.
Doula Nicky Dawkins (Mama Spa Botanica collaborator) is infinitely reflected 9 months pregnant as she prepares for labor on the front lines of the birthing justice crisis crowning in Miami during the 2021 corona virus pandemic, where doulas are forbidden from delivery rooms. Nicky describes the infinite burden of double consciousness when birthing in America as a black, Jamaican doula during a conversation with the artist Coralina Rodriguez Meyer in the Mama Spa Botanica workshop. Nicky's reflection renders our creative and procreative surveillance as a site for political discourse within the critical resistance labor of biological and biographical family structures.
Nicky's life-saving reproductive justice work with Menstrual Market, Southern Birth Justice Network & Period Movement Miami as well as her life-giving doula work, is a radical expansion of self regard as community regard. Miami FL is a wellness centered city with the highest infant and maternal mortality rate in the US for black birthing people in hospitals. Embodied in a multi-dimensional image reflected within the history of surveillance, security aesthetics and neon screens; the depiction of Nicky's bold work resists violent stigmas and advertising archetypes in vivid contrast to US climate & reproductive health policies impacting her patients.
- Subject Matter: Double Consciousness Infinity Mirror
- Collections: Linea Negra photographs