A Cross-Cultural Art Project

Project Plan & Layout

flow chart

In order to start this conversation, we decided to create a cross-cultural art project with input from American and Nicaraguan women. Our plan was to distribute index cards and colored pencils and then ask three questions:

  1. How did you feel when you found out you were pregnant?
  2. How do you feel right now with regard to pregnancy and / or motherhood?
  3. How do you feel when you think about the next few months?

The goal of these questions is to get at the emotions that accompany different stages in motherhood. We do not want to encourage the women to share any particular set of emotions, but rather let them interpret the questions and decide how to respond, be it with positive, negative, or neutral feelings. Additionally, in answering the questions, we don’t want to ask for any particular mode of response. Instead, we’ve decided to leave options open to use art, writing, speaking, or any other means of communication. We also photographed several emotional faces with the help of our classmates so that participants who might not want to produce an answer themselves can simply point to the facial expression that best matches their emotions.

After the questions are answered by those willing to participate, the second part of the project is to photograph the women we’ve spoken to. This part, like the first, is voluntary, but we hope that most women will be willing to have their pictures taken for our mural. Using a polaroid camera that prints photos on the spot, we can take pictures of the women either with or without their children, acting and appearing however they so choose, and then give them a print to keep for themselves in addition to the one that we use for the mural. This provides another means of artistic expression while also serving a secondary purpose within our project: giving these women a photographic record of their pregnancy or their child’s early infancy, something that they might not have access to otherwise.

Finally, the last stage of the project is to use the index cards and photographs to create a mural. We hope that the mixture of American and Nicaraguan women can be seen as a symbol of cross-cultural unity in the experience of motherhood, even if the lives of the women pictured are extraordinarily different. We would also like the pictures, words, phrases, and images collected there to serve as a reminder that pregnant women and new mothers are not alone in their emotions, encouraging conversations about mental health and wellness after we leave Nicaragua.