Born from the Heart, Photos of the Soul
Born from the Heart, Photos of the Soul
Born from the Heart, Photos of the Soul was a participatory photovoice exhibition developed through the MORE (Maternity Opportunities for Research and Engagement) Project at King’s College London.
Through photography, reflection, and storytelling, women from South London explored experiences of pregnancy, motherhood, maternity care, identity, support, wellbeing, and inequality. The exhibition brought together photographs, captions, audio reflections, and collaborative analysis developed by participants, peer researchers, and researchers working together over several years.
The exhibition invited visitors to look beyond clinical encounters and explore the wider experiences that shape maternity journeys, including family, work, migration, relationships, community, and mental health. Through creative and participatory approaches, the project aimed to create space for lived experience to inform conversations about maternity care, inequalities, and change.
Researchers, peer researchers, and community members worked alongside one another throughout the project, shaping research questions, activities, interpretation, and dissemination. Rather than viewing participation as a single stage of research, MORE sought to embed collaboration throughout the entire process.
How the Exhibition was Created
The exhibition was developed using Photovoice, a participatory research method that combines photography, storytelling, and critical reflection.
Women participating in the MORE Project took photographs capturing moments, feelings, experiences, and reflections from pregnancy and motherhood in their everyday lives. Participants then worked together with peer researchers and researchers to title, caption, discuss, and interpret the photographs through a series of workshops and collaborative analysis sessions.
The exhibition was co-curated through an iterative process involving community listening events, peer researcher training, visual analysis, group discussions, and exhibition planning sessions. Rather than focusing only on outcomes, the exhibition also reflects the relationships, conversations, and shared learning that developed throughout the project journey.
Working together created opportunities for shared learning and mutual understanding, while helping to reduce traditional boundaries between researchers and communities.
Reflections from participants and peer researchers
Throughout the MORE Project, participants, peer researchers, and researchers worked collaboratively to share experiences, reflect together, and shape the direction of the project.
For many involved, the process became more than a research project or exhibition. It created opportunities for connection, creativity, confidence, shared learning, and mutual support. Photography often opened up new ways of communicating experiences that were difficult to express through words alone.
This section shares reflections from participants and peer researchers about the process of taking part in the project, co-curating the exhibition, and exploring experiences of pregnancy and motherhood through participatory research and creative engagement.
Visitor responses
The exhibition invited visitors to reflect on the experiences, photographs, and stories shared throughout the project.
Visitors were encouraged to respond to the exhibition through written reflections, comments, and messages, creating an ongoing conversation between participants, audiences, researchers, health professionals, and community members.
The responses shared here capture moments of recognition, emotion, learning, connection, and reflection inspired by the exhibition.
This collaborative approach helped ensure that interpretations remained grounded in participants’ own experiences while creating opportunities for discussion, challenge, and shared understanding.
The project culminated in Born from the Heart, Photos of the Soul, a co-curated exhibition that shared not only the photographs themselves but also the conversations, relationships, and recommendations that emerged through the process.
Future directions
The MORE Project continues to evolve through ongoing collaborations, participatory research, public engagement, and creative dissemination activities.
Future work will focus on continuing conversations around relational maternity care, lived experience, inequalities, and community-centred approaches to research and service improvement. The project also aims to support wider use of participatory and peer research approaches within maternity and public health research.
As the project grows, MORE hopes to continue creating spaces where women, families, peer researchers, communities, researchers, and practitioners can work together to explore experiences, share knowledge, and shape meaningful change within maternity systems.