LADA Screens Double Bill: HBAC Performance Manifesto

LADA is delighted to present this double bill on motherhood, two inspiring online screenings showcasing the journey into motherhood from conception, pregnancy and act of birthing. Featuring HBAC Performance Manifesto and GOO:GA.

HBAC Performance Manifesto

HBAC Performance Manifesto is an artist film by SLQS. This work is a documentation of  HBAC Performance Manifesto, written during the last term of her pregnancy and the Home Birth After Cesarean performed on 04-05 November 2018 by the artist with the support of two independent midwives. This film is autobiographical and created in response to the artist’s lived experience of being assessed by the NHS as ‘high risk’ having previously had a caesarean and denied her birthing rights to having a home birth. 

The Manifesto declares the artist views on birth as a performative act of everyday life and was published by the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services in 2020 and M.A.M.A Publication in 2022. 

Independent midwifery supports choices for women by providing evidence based information and continuity of care to women. Since 2020, due to a change in their  insurance product, their practice is now heavily restricted, threatening an ancestral profession and forcing many women to go through unwanted hospital births. Please support the campaign Childbirth Choices Matters fundraising to set up a unique social insurance product for birthing people owned by women. 

Artist Bio

SLQS is a Franco-Vietnamese artist living in East London. Her practice researches the politics of space and who is excluded from it. SLQS makes and holds space as a woman, a person of mixed heritage, a foreigner, a mother, an artist and a birth activist. She invites her audience to decolonise spatial orders from imperialist, sexist and racist structures.

Her practice is multi-disciplinary spanning from performance, live art, photography, video and screen printing. She also works as producer, curator and workshop leader. She co-produced Oxytocin 2017 and 2022 and curated the Mother Art Prize 2017 for Procreate Project.

SLQS graduated with distinction from MA Performance Making at Goldsmiths University of London. She presented work at MOMA Machynlleth, Totally Thames, Spitalfields Music, Rich Mix, Procreate Project, the Live Art Development Agency, the Royal College of Art, the Brunel Museum, the Migration Museum, the Attenborough Art Centre, the Science Gallery  and the University of Lincoln. She is currently a member of the New Artist Collective and Creative Think Tank at UK New Artists.

Find out more about SLQS by following them on Instagram @SLQSstudio or visiting SLQSstudio.com.

Film Credits

Performers:

Mother SLQS
Father
Child
Baby
Independent midwife Emilie Edwards
Independent midwife Jacqui Tomkins

Filmed by:

SLQS
Father

Edited by:

Ella Yolande
Glacier soundscape by Néfur (aka Laura Guarch)

Thank you for your support:

Live Art Development Agency
Arts & Health Hub
Procreate Project
London Birth Practice