Invite to participate in Commemorative Art Project

[susheli]

Dear PE forum mothers,

I am a survivor of severe PE and a PE forum reader/poster. Since joining here, I have been deeply touched by the devastating effects of PE and especially the all-too many stories of families who lost their babies to this terrible disease. Rather than stand by, I long to do something actively in my life and within my work as a writer and artist to forward, even in a small way, the awareness of PE and HELLP to save lives.

I am working on a public art/text installation that will be exhibited as part of my MFA studies at Brown University in Providence, RI, this summer. (Pending funding, I hope to take the exhibit to other locations as well.) The installation intends to both commemorate the babies lost to PE and raise public awareness of PE and HELLP.

The exhibit will be a sea of small, identical, white cradles, constructed as an artistic installation and set up in rows on a grassy area, each standing for a precious baby lost to pre-eclampsia or HELLP. The number of cradles will be determined both by the response from the PE community and to reflect a relevant statistic. The cradles will stand empty, however once the viewer steps closer, s/he will bend over them and find inside a text commemorating a named baby, using words shared with me by families who elect to participate.

This message is an invitation to dedicate a cradle to a baby lost to PE. If you would like to participate in my installation in this way, I will invite you to share texts, letters, poems, anything you or other family members may have already written about or to your baby. * You don't need to be a creative writer or have any writing experience to participate! * I will also invite you, if you feel comfortable doing so, to reply to a few, brief questions about your baby and your pregnancy. I will then create a text based on your words for the inside of your baby's cradle. I will do so with utmost respect for the writing you have shared with me, and I will share my text with you before completing the cradle.
When I read stories about babies lost to PE or HELLP - all of which move and affect me deeply – I usually remember above all one detail, one word used, one moment that leads me to come to know this unique baby through their family's words and also to feel both the endless sense of loss and the immense gratitude for and celebration of their short life. These are the moments I hope to find and weave into short, creative texts for the cradles.

The Pre-eclampsia Foundation has endorsed my project and published an article about it in this month's newsletter here: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=fh4htedab&v=001UGlpv9WiH3WizXCm_JuPTgqUDo2UHQ12BXM2m1l4bg7A2FRCLjLNs_U6mIzOqkNa0v6qEibxrraXHArPyvYWSrBzx97iLoJOph120QPfaSfcJAySbogRIHBOtUL1I4ImWgm61oQ-nYBWMYCIKW_QWDNwp1uNDKGr_qil4K8ZGW9TUoVGNxpyn-KMZnicRvMIRFixf3jzrcbBWc64xtDY-xUs_9SaT9fti9QUrULClQkqsSkmX_me7uiEKaTAWWfSmEeNsde6dsM%3D

If you would like to contact me for further information or to participate, please email me at: susannah_pabot@brown.edu

Thank you.
Warmly,
Susannah

[amanda]

This is a beautiful idea and the visual will provide 'numbers' to your words. The very best of luck...

[rosemary]

What an incredible idea. I look foward to seeing photos of the final project. Best wishes with it!

[susheli]

Thank you, Amanda and Rosemary, for your kind and encouraging comments. And thank you so very much to everyone who has contacted me so far. I am deeply moved by each one of your beautiful messages and your trust in me and my project.

I am posting here again because I forgot to mention, especially for those of you who live too far from RI to see the exhibit, that I will be working with a photographer who will take pictures of the exhibit, and I will send each participating family a photograph together with the text of their cradle. So while I am hoping to be able to travel with the exhibit - my husband and I are free to travel for some week in the summer of 2012 and would like to use this time to raise awareness of PE through my exhibit - I will make sure that even if this doesn't happen, each participating family can "experience" the visual impact of the project.

I haven't had enough responses to go ahead yet, so I wanted to add here that if you are interested in participating, but have any questions or hesitations, please do feel you can contact me without any obligation to go ahead. Also, if you know someone who might want to dedicate a cradle, but doesn't often come to the forum, please do pass on my information. I'd also be grateful for any thought on where else I might post information about my project. Thank you so much!

I don't want to give the sense of pushing anyone, so I feel awkward about posting again, however, I am really hopefully that my project will make a difference, even if just a small one, by raising awareness of PE. And I wouldn't want it not to happen because I haven't reached enough possible participants.

Finally, I wanted to add that you don't have to consider yourself a "creative writer" to participate. I can work with any writing you have, including blog posts and forum posts.

Thank you for reading. Warmly,
Susannah