Birth Rights
ALABAMA • BETHANY MOLLENKOF
From the 2021-2022 We, Women nationwide exhibit.
About the project
I have spent a lot of time documenting reproductive rights, childbirth, and motherhood, often focusing on what it’s like to be pregnant as a Black woman in the South. These images and stories offer an intimate portrait and counter narrative of a long-ignored, erased, and censored community. Three months before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the U.S., forcing me to shelter-in-place, I found out I was pregnant, for the first time, with a girl. As I couldn’t document other people's stories due to COVID-19, I was pushed to turn the camera on myself and document my own experience as a Black pregnant woman living through extraordinary circumstances.
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
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About the Artist
Bethany Mollenkof is a documentary photographer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her work uses a thoughtful approach to tell complex stories about gender, culture, identity, and representation through an engaging, vibrant, and artistic process. Her essay and photo series, "Giving birth in a time of death: a love letter to my daughter," is part of National Geographic’s ongoing COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists. She is currently a visiting Neiman Fellow at Harvard and her work has been published in The New York Times, TIME, and National Geographic, among others.