Olympic (Be Your Own Mom Doula Nicky Dawkins)

Doula Nicky Dawkins (Mama Spa Botanica collaborator) is depicted 9 months pregnant as she prepares to go into labor on the front lines of the birthing justice crisis crowning in Miami where during the corona virus pandemic- doulas are not allowed in delivery rooms. Nicky describes the experience of double consciousness as infinitely taxing when you are giving birth. The conversation between artist Coralina Rodriguez Meyer and Nicky concluded with the idea of infinite double consciousness, or Be Your Own Mom to survive birth. Self reproduction involves not only the burden of laboring and delivering offspring, but that one must replicate and divide yourself into the individual (self care) and one's infinite procreativity (your child's survival). Her work as a doula and public advocate resists increasing attacks on low income BIPOC reproductive communities threaten to eradicate families and histories from our cultural conscience. In Nicky’s words, “Hospitals are doing to black mothers on the labor and delivery wards what police are doing to our men on the streets”.

The Linea Negra series photographs (2008-present) documents the inception of gender, power and race structures from slogans, slang, maxims and "old wives tales" to internalized, institutional violence. The works celebrate the melanin line appearing during gestation (most prominent in women of color) as a biological pieta; the first biographical mark on the procreative body and the first sign of our creative humanity.