Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy by Maggie Shannon
Dimensions: 8.5” x 10.5”
Soft fabric cover, thread-sewn and Swiss-bound, 112 pages
Expected shipping date: November 2024.
ARE YOU LOOKING TO ORDER THIS BOOK IN EUROPE OR ROW? PLEASE CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE (scroll down and click under back issues).
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Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy
Against the backdrop of an America that increasingly casts women’s healthcare and bodily autonomy aside, Maggie Shannon’s Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy is both a celebration of birthing bodies and an intimate, candid depiction of what it means to care—Shannon demystifies childbirth, reminding us that it is at once epic, and utterly ordinary.
Shannon’s award-winning photo series began as a documentation of midwife-led home births after much of the US went into lockdown in early March 2020; now it is recontextualized in book form, complete with a foreword by Angela Garbes, an artist Q&A with critic Gem Fletcher and a slew of never-before-seen images that together create a timeless meditation on this fundamental human experience.
Capturing the entire process of birth—the exhaustion along the way, the agony of the moment of, the surreal relief of the after and the lulls in between—Shannon offers a rare view of mothers, becoming.
“I never got to see real pictures of women giving birth, it’s just not part of the public discourse,” she says, “We see this TV version where the woman is huffing and puffing and she’s wheeled into a room and then she comes back out a minute later with this 1-year-old baby. I think we’re discounting ourselves by portraying it in this way.”
The images also subtly reflect on the realities of childbearing and childrearing in America. In a country that has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among developed nations and where Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, in a country that has no guaranteed parental leave, a dearth of affordable childcare and little support for mothers from the very instant they become one, these photographs are intimate meditations on the tireless strength of women and the raw beauty of that suspended reality, before the work really begins.
About the artist:
Maggie Shannon is a photographer specializing in portrait and documentary work. She tells stories of small communities and their social rituals in order to elevate marginalized voices and build a more inclusive world. Her approach is rooted in honesty, empathy, and endless curiosity.
Hailing from Martha's Vineyard, Shannon received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Photography, Video and Related Media. Shannon was selected as a 2018 PDN Emerging Photographer and was named one of Magnum's 30 under 30 (2015). She is a member of Women Photograph and her work has appeared in TheNew York Times, National Geographic, Die Zeit, Wall Street Journal, Time, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, People and The New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Roy and their daughter Charlotte.
Dimensions: 8.5” x 10.5”
Soft fabric cover, thread-sewn and Swiss-bound, 112 pages
Expected shipping date: November 2024.
ARE YOU LOOKING TO ORDER THIS BOOK IN EUROPE OR ROW? PLEASE CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE (scroll down and click under back issues).
—
Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy
Against the backdrop of an America that increasingly casts women’s healthcare and bodily autonomy aside, Maggie Shannon’s Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy is both a celebration of birthing bodies and an intimate, candid depiction of what it means to care—Shannon demystifies childbirth, reminding us that it is at once epic, and utterly ordinary.
Shannon’s award-winning photo series began as a documentation of midwife-led home births after much of the US went into lockdown in early March 2020; now it is recontextualized in book form, complete with a foreword by Angela Garbes, an artist Q&A with critic Gem Fletcher and a slew of never-before-seen images that together create a timeless meditation on this fundamental human experience.
Capturing the entire process of birth—the exhaustion along the way, the agony of the moment of, the surreal relief of the after and the lulls in between—Shannon offers a rare view of mothers, becoming.
“I never got to see real pictures of women giving birth, it’s just not part of the public discourse,” she says, “We see this TV version where the woman is huffing and puffing and she’s wheeled into a room and then she comes back out a minute later with this 1-year-old baby. I think we’re discounting ourselves by portraying it in this way.”
The images also subtly reflect on the realities of childbearing and childrearing in America. In a country that has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among developed nations and where Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, in a country that has no guaranteed parental leave, a dearth of affordable childcare and little support for mothers from the very instant they become one, these photographs are intimate meditations on the tireless strength of women and the raw beauty of that suspended reality, before the work really begins.
About the artist:
Maggie Shannon is a photographer specializing in portrait and documentary work. She tells stories of small communities and their social rituals in order to elevate marginalized voices and build a more inclusive world. Her approach is rooted in honesty, empathy, and endless curiosity.
Hailing from Martha's Vineyard, Shannon received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Photography, Video and Related Media. Shannon was selected as a 2018 PDN Emerging Photographer and was named one of Magnum's 30 under 30 (2015). She is a member of Women Photograph and her work has appeared in TheNew York Times, National Geographic, Die Zeit, Wall Street Journal, Time, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, People and The New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Roy and their daughter Charlotte.
Dimensions: 8.5” x 10.5”
Soft fabric cover, thread-sewn and Swiss-bound, 112 pages
Expected shipping date: November 2024.
ARE YOU LOOKING TO ORDER THIS BOOK IN EUROPE OR ROW? PLEASE CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE (scroll down and click under back issues).
—
Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy
Against the backdrop of an America that increasingly casts women’s healthcare and bodily autonomy aside, Maggie Shannon’s Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy is both a celebration of birthing bodies and an intimate, candid depiction of what it means to care—Shannon demystifies childbirth, reminding us that it is at once epic, and utterly ordinary.
Shannon’s award-winning photo series began as a documentation of midwife-led home births after much of the US went into lockdown in early March 2020; now it is recontextualized in book form, complete with a foreword by Angela Garbes, an artist Q&A with critic Gem Fletcher and a slew of never-before-seen images that together create a timeless meditation on this fundamental human experience.
Capturing the entire process of birth—the exhaustion along the way, the agony of the moment of, the surreal relief of the after and the lulls in between—Shannon offers a rare view of mothers, becoming.
“I never got to see real pictures of women giving birth, it’s just not part of the public discourse,” she says, “We see this TV version where the woman is huffing and puffing and she’s wheeled into a room and then she comes back out a minute later with this 1-year-old baby. I think we’re discounting ourselves by portraying it in this way.”
The images also subtly reflect on the realities of childbearing and childrearing in America. In a country that has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among developed nations and where Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, in a country that has no guaranteed parental leave, a dearth of affordable childcare and little support for mothers from the very instant they become one, these photographs are intimate meditations on the tireless strength of women and the raw beauty of that suspended reality, before the work really begins.
About the artist:
Maggie Shannon is a photographer specializing in portrait and documentary work. She tells stories of small communities and their social rituals in order to elevate marginalized voices and build a more inclusive world. Her approach is rooted in honesty, empathy, and endless curiosity.
Hailing from Martha's Vineyard, Shannon received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Photography, Video and Related Media. Shannon was selected as a 2018 PDN Emerging Photographer and was named one of Magnum's 30 under 30 (2015). She is a member of Women Photograph and her work has appeared in TheNew York Times, National Geographic, Die Zeit, Wall Street Journal, Time, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, People and The New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Roy and their daughter Charlotte.