Lorraine Parker | Unfamiliar Landscape

“The work for this exhibition looks at the female body as it collides with institutional policies and procedures. The sculptures reflect the traumatised birth with its intrusive procedures resulting in the loss of bodily autonomy.? 

Women’s?bodies are a landscape,?a site of contention and control. It is within maternity institutions where interventions,?policy, procedure and?tolerances dominate and leave women outside of decisions made about their bodies.? 

My figures express the rawness of birth, the altered body as new unfamiliar landscape.?A body left to deal with the consequences of ‘too much too soon’ (non-evidence-based interventions) and too little too late (below evidence-based standards, or care withheld or unavailable until too late to help)’? 

The pages of the handmade Artist Book emulate stretched, cut, torn bodies held together with stitch: one side is the pencil line of the scar and the underside reveals the layered, messy and unfiltered inner tale.? The?paper is whitewashed, tactile and fragile, reflecting the need for a careful touch.? 

The materials used are everyday and common, without intrinsic value, it’s simply paper and household items, there is no language of value in the materials. Paper is torn, pulped and layered onto a frame made from branches, newspaper and tape. There is push and pull with the frame allowing for twisting and contorting of the figures. They are an outward expression of the hidden internalised trauma.” Lorraine Parker, 2026.