Sallyanne Flemons: You are making work for the Still Born project to help break taboos around the subject of stillbirth. Can you tell us about how your own experience led to you creating this project and how you came to work with Tommy’s?

Adinda van ‘t Klooster: In 2010, my daughter Elvira was stillborn in week 41 and a half. Her death, which was secondary to undetected growth-restriction, could have been prevented if more frequent scanning would have been offered in the standard care package or even if I had been induced in week 40 or 41 of the pregnancy. It was my first pregnancy and at 37 years of age I wasn’t classed as high-risk so would not have been induced till almost 42 weeks. I have since seen the statistics that show that women above 35 generally would benefit from being induced in week 40, or sooner as age goes up, to prevent unnecessary stillbirths. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists produced a paper in 2013 that showed that inducing women above 40 in week 39 of the pregnancy would improve pregnancy outcomes.[1] As policies change very slowly, what tends to happen is that some people get better care than others. I feel very strongly that all women should receive the best possible care in pregnancy and that women above 35 should be offered extra scans and early induction to avoid unnecessary stillbirths or neonatal deaths.

This project is very much about raising awareness on issues around stillbirth. There is a tremendous taboo on the subject which means many women aren’t as well informed as they could be. I was lucky enough to have a living daughter five years after the stillbirth, at the advanced age of 42. I received extra scans and medical advice at the Tommy’s Rainbow Clinic in Manchester and the pregnancy was otherwise managed at the RVI in Newcastle where the care was also very good. I needed the extra support from the Tommy’s clinic as I found it hard to trust medical opinion after what had happened before.

More generally, this project is meant to help people who have suffered a stillbirth in that it might make them feel a little bit less alone. There is very little contemporary art on the theme of stillbirth and this is surprising given that there are 2.6 million stillbirths a year globally. Lancet called for the end of unnecessary stillbirth by 2030 and this project wishes to help by making stillbirth less of a hidden subject.

 

Sallyanne Flemons: Why do you think breaking taboos around the subject is so important?

Adinda van ‘t Klooster: Sometimes, and perhaps increasingly so, to get the best medical care you have to ask the right questions. In an ideal world the best medical advice would always be offered by all medical professionals, but in reality this is not the case. The taboo that rests on stillbirth keeps people in the dark. There is also the very dangerous notion that pregnant women should be kept in a happy bubble and not ever hear anything upsetting. The reality is that it is much better to know how to avoid a very upsetting pregnancy outcome, by knowing when to ask for extra help or when to change medical professional, than it is to have to come to terms with a stillbirth. If more people spoke openly about their experience of stillbirth, more of the avoidable stillbirths could be prevented. Many women who have had a stillbirth feel guilty even if they did all the right things. I hope with my work to help publicise these issues. I think this will also help those who have already suffered a stillbirth, hopefully making them feel less isolated in their grief.

 

Sallyanne Flemons: Do you expect families who have gone through the same experience to see the work and gain comfort from it?

Adinda van ‘t Klooster: Yes, I hope that will be the case.

 

Sallyanne Flemons: Can you tell us more about the artworks you will be exhibiting?

Adinda van ‘t Klooster: The artworks are all very different and were made in different stages of the grief that followed my daughter Elvira’s stillbirth. The earlier works are sculptural works: five porcelain uteruses with growth charts, scans and poems printed onto them. The growth-charts show how relying on fundal height measurements can help to miss growth restriction, whilst the poem piece is more emotive.

The new works have been made almost seven years after the stillbirth, when it has been possible to take more distance from the subject matter and treat it also as a societal problem, rather than just a personal one. That it is a societal problem should be clear from the figures: there are about 2.6 million stillbirths a year worldwide[2], and there were about 8.2 million cancer deaths in 2012[3]. So why does everyone know about cancer yet very few people know anything about stillbirth? Is the death of a living baby who is ready to be born considered less important than the death of a person who has lived in the world already for x number of years? Or is it because the larger share of stillbirths occur in developing countries? And why have stillbirth figures come down very little in developed countries in the past twenty years?[4]

I cannot begin to answer any of these questions with my work, but what I can do is make more people aware that the questions exist.

One of the works, the largest drawing in the recent series, entitled: Each Egg a World aims to humanise the figures on stillbirth. The drawing consists of many white dots on a black background, together forming shapes that look like Scanning Electron Micrograph images of human eggs. Each hole in this drawing signifies a stillbirth, and all that that entails. This includes the pregnancy that preceded it, the hopes and expectations of the mother and wider family for the child about to be born, the birth of a dead baby, the collapsing hopes, the years of depression that follow, the alienation from everything worldly and eventually after years of hard work hopefully finding some way to live on that honours all that is good, even if the knowledge that all that is loved can be taken away at a moment’s notice remains engraved in one’s being. So on paper it’s just a small dot, but in reality in terms of impact it’s huge.

The aim of this work is to humanize figures on stillbirth as I think people can’t feel the impact when presented with large figures. When people read there are 2.6 million stillbirths a year, they don’t realize the enormity of the grief caused worldwide, as they first have to start imagining what it means for one person, and they don’t want to imagine that. An idea for the future is to expand this work into an internet-based version where each dot can be claimed by the parent of a stillborn baby.

In the coming months I will also be developing some 3-dimensional work on the same subject matter using 3D printing. All this has been made possible by a small grant for the arts from the Arts Council England. The work has just been shown as part of the international IFPA2017 conference on the development of the placenta and is now available for touring. Images can be viewed here.

 

 Sallyanne Flemons: Why did you decide to ask poets to respond to your work?

Adinda van ‘t Klooster: Due to the complexity of the feelings raised by a stillbirth and the impact on relationships afterwards, I have often felt that to express feelings around stillbirth words are possibly a better medium than visual art. I have heard from a lot of stillbirth survivors that they lost all or almost all of their friends after a stillbirth. This shows how badly prepared most people are for such a tragedy to befall anyone in their circle of friends. Asking poets to respond to the work is a way to broaden the circle of people thinking and talking about stillbirth and it will also be a meaningful way to engage in a dialogue about the artworks.

 

Sallyanne Flemons: What can we expect from the new book?

Adinda van ‘t Klooster: The book will collate twelve of my artworks on the theme of stillbirth, some old but mostly new works, and their counterparts in the shape of twelve commissioned poems. One of the participating poets is Karen McCarthy Woolf who wrote a very moving anthology on the theme of stillbirth called An Aviary of Small Birds in 2014. The other poets are selected from an open call.

The book will also contain an article by Prof. Alexander Heazell on ending preventable stillbirths by 2030, as The Lancet has called for in 2016.

The book will come out in April 2018; it can be pre-ordered for £25 (email [email protected] for further information).

 

[1] Dhanjal, MK and Kenyon, A, RCOG (Feb 2013) Induction of Labour at Term in Older Mothers, Scientific Impact Paper No. 34

[2] Tommy’s, https://www.tommys.org/our-organisation/charity-research/pregnancy-statistics/stillbirth

[3] Cancer Research UK, http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/worldwide-cancer

[4] Bosely, S. (2011), Stillbirth rate in UK one of Europe’s highest, Lancet finds, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/apr/14/stillbirths-babies-uk-lancet-report


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