“Medical Attention” mixed media, 2023, Margaret Plaganis

“Medical Attention” starts my “Passenger Series”. I fused ancient midwifery drawings with black and white photos of pregnant women in an early 20th century obstetrical text. (Passenger is the colloquial word for fetus.) I want the assemblage to convey foreboding women endure as we struggle to get affordable, appropriate reproductive healthcare through every phase of our lives. Old obstacles still exist. Ignorance and misogyny now forge laws and policies to stop women from getting resources and tools that sustain our wellbeing.

Margaret Plaganis is a visual artist, writer and educator; recent poetry is published in Pure Slush Lifespan anthologies,  WORDPEACE.CO and Connecticut Poetry Society Video, Ekphrastic Poetry; New Britain Museum of American Art. Her collage/poetry books are in the Brooklyn Art Library collection: https://www.sketchbookproject.com/library/S145336