Yuting Cao

This project begins from a personal memory of witnessing my mother’s childbirth. Rather than illustrating the event directly, the work considers the maternal body as a site of passage, rupture, and repair. Clay is central for its bodily qualities—soft, collapsible, able to stretch, crack, and be mended. Through coiling, seams and cavities are built slowly, and I intentionally retain cracks and joins to register labour, pressure, and time.

Across the series, I explore different childbirth modalities. Two sculptures reference caesarean incisions—horizontal and vertical—treating the opening as both anatomical and metaphorical, pointing to vulnerability, intervention, and care. Epoxy resin flows from these forms, suggesting fluidity and the ongoing nature of internal processes. Another work engages with Sitting Birth using a birthing stool I constructed, acknowledging how birth relies on support structures shaped by cultural, architectural, and bodily conditions. The largest sculpture, Standing Birth, is surrounded by fabric and plastic sheeting. Four suspended sheets are stitched to the ground, recalling surgical drapes, domestic coverings, and cloths once used for gripping during labour.

Together, the installation invites viewers to encounter birth as an embodied, relational process shaped by environment, tools, memory, and care.