Project
BIRTH CULTURES: a journey through European history and traditions around birth and maternity, is a project co-funded by the European Union under the Creative Europe Culture Programme (2014-2020) that contributes to preserve and transmit, through arts and culture, birth and maternity traditional knowledge and practices as part of European intangible cultural heritage. The project is implemented by Interarts (coordinator, Spain) in cooperation with Frauenmuseum Hittisau (Austria), Frauenmuseum Merano (Italy), Gender Museum (Ukraine) and in association with IAWM (Italy), ECCOM (Italy) and Birth Café Campaign (Germany). The project will run from November 2019 to April 2022.
According to the German associations’ Birth Café Campaign and Hebammen für Deutschland (Midwives for Germany), when it comes to pregnancy and birth the existing lack of instruments, such as historical research and exhibitions, does not enable for these topics to become accessible to different publics and audiences.
Against this background, BIRTH CULTURES has the following specific objectives:
- To strengthen capacities of and collaboration between women’s museums in Europe to raise awareness on women’s health and sexual and reproductive rights.
- To enhance intercultural dialogue and artistic co-creation around values and practices related to culture, birth and maternity.
- To improve access, including young people and migrants, to European cultural and creative works and intangible cultural heritage.
The project is based on the acknowledgment that socially engaged art represents an effective way of processing, explaining and promoting topics of particular social value but also of engaging audiences through a participative approach. By sharing and providing information or topics of discussion, it will foster a deeper understanding of the issues tackled and of the necessary emotional intelligence to process them.
- Birth Cultures publication (English)
- Birth Cultures publication (Ukrainian)
