Helen Sargeant was  recently invited by curator Helen Knowles of the Birth Rites Collection to attend the Birth Rites conference at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.

Here she engaged in inspiring discussion about maternal experience and the representation of birth with speakers such as Dr Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck University of London) and Dr Imogen Tyler (Lancaster University). Lisa Baraitser is the co-founder of MaMSIE (Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics), and Imogen Tyler sits on the editorial board of Studies in the Maternal.

She also very much enjoyed the work of photographer Eti Wade, and was very interested in the work of Martina Mullaney and the art movement Enemies of Good Art.