After much of the USA went into lockdown in early March 2020, LA-based photographer Maggie Shannon began following midwives in Los Angeles as they navigated new protocols caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. By photographing the midwives, Shannon explores what it means to bear life in a time of sorrow and grief. The midwives’ phones rang endlessly with calls from terrified women hoping to deliver safely in their homes. With hospitals flooded and many banning partners from the delivery room, the possibility of going through childbirth without a mask and in a familiar setting seemed, to these women, like the only option. 

Amid a Covid surge in late 2021, Shannon began documenting midwives in West Michigan. Many of their patients have tested positive, refused to get vaccinated, or wear masks during their appointments. They were on the frontline of seeing Covid complications in pregnant women. The midwives are understaffed, overwhelmed and burnt out after the two years of working under extreme stress.

Midwives provide guidance and guardianship rooted in generational wisdom, combining medical expertise with emotional support. ‘Extreme Pain, But Also Extreme Joy’ takes place under the shadow of the movement to overturn Roe vs. Wade in the United States. The midwives are adamant about empowering women to make their own choices and shape their own bodily experiences by terminating a pregnancy or giving birth at home. 

At a time marked by separation and death, these stories of connection, care, and birth are especially healing. Childbearing and the work of midwives is not well documented historically; while the realities of childbirth are often still taboo. When a difficult process is made even harder by a global pandemic and restrictive laws, the need to be honest about childbirth and our own bodies is even more important. For Shannon, each of these stories is unique and it is crucial to this project to present a diversity of mothers and birth workers. Equally, this project illuminates how the Covid-19 pandemic disproportionately affected women, and some of the burdens they had to bear.

This exhibition presents an excerpt of ‘Extreme Pain, But Also Extreme Joy’ (2020-ongoing).

Artist Bio:

Maggie Shannon (b.1988, USA) is a photographer specialising in portrait and documentary work. Maggie tells stories of small communities and their social rituals in order to elevate marginalised voices and build a more inclusive world. Her approach is rooted in honesty, empathy, and endless curiosity. Hailing from Martha's Vineyard, she received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Photography, Video and Related Media and is now based in Los Angeles, California. Maggie was selected as a 2018 PDN Emerging Photographer and was named one of Magnum's 30 under 30. She is a member of Women Photograph and her work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, Die Zeit, Wall Street Journal, Time, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, People and the New Yorker. Her book Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy will be released fall of 2024 through Mother Tongue.