BIO
Dr Christina Kolaiti is a Senior Lecturer in Photography at York St John University. She is a visual artist whose research has been based on interdisciplinary collaborations with healthcare institutions. For over a decade Kolaiti’s research activity has positioned the narrative properties of fine art photography within a diverse range of scientific and pedagogical contexts.
Her research profile includes exhibitions set within various hospital sites (for example, The Northern Surgery Skills Institute at Hexham General Hospital and The Royal College of Physicians in London). She has received research awards by The Arts and Humanities Research Council, The Arts Council England, York St John University and most notably, The Combined Royal Photographic Society and Royal Medical Colleges Medal in 2011, ‘[...] for an outstanding contribution to the advancement of medical photography.’ (rps.org)
ABOUT THE ART
Three Degrees of Separation
This body of research challenges the conflicting landscape of early motherhood, as this is conveyed through social prescriptions, which interpret the body as a metaphor for self-worth and aim at controlling the mother-infant physicality. This norm is in fact experienced through three progressive stages of physical and emotional separation between mother and infant, opposing the fundamental principles of healthy attachment (Bowlby, 1969) and can result in breastfeeding grief, separation anxiety and trauma.
This installation strives towards a natural approach to the mother-infant relationship through physical closeness in both daytime and night-time parenting practices. This reveals the social construct of separateness as a misleading connotation of independence, exposed by the disturbing melancholy of the aloneness of the cherished handmade teddy bear.
Installation by Christina Kolaiti.
Image by Megan Curtis, post-production Paul Spillett