Book Review: It's Been Pouring by Rachel Papo
It's Been Pouring by Rachel Papo ©
Written by Caroline Johnson
Copyedited by Chloë Rain
New-York based photographer, Rachel Papo is releasing her book entitled, It’s Been Pouring. Through a series of photographs, personal text messages and interviews with other mothers, she sheds light on the reality of the intense emotions that can accompany childbirth. She refers to this period as ‘the dark secret first year of motherhood.’ This project is coming at an extremely pertinent time, as the topic of postpartum depression is becoming increasingly less stigmatized. However, Papo takes that to another level. She allows her reader to experience the pain that plagued her and many other mothers after the birth of their child. Her work deals with the tension that comes between the expectation of the miracle of birth met with feelings of dread and despair.
It's Been Pouring by Rachel Papo ©
It's Been Pouring by Rachel Papo ©
The book begins with Papo’s personal text messages from conversations with her friends, family, healthcare professionals and others. The many different conversations allow for a complete picture of how she viewed and portrayed herself in 2013, shortly after the birth of her son. These writings grapple with her depression, her hesitance of using medication, her desire to heal and her feelings of loneliness. These are interspersed with her photographs, each one a scene of her everyday life. The photographs invite the viewer into her world, including portraits of herself and her child, though in a way that they begin to feel disengaged with one another. This world that was once her own space now seems distant and unfamiliar. These vignettes take on a much darker tone as they are paired with her own words, showing her disconnect from her reality.
It's Been Pouring by Rachel Papo ©
Papo includes stories from other mothers, many of whom shared similar feelings. These stories are shown against images of homes, children, and the world that seems to be passing these mothers by as they are trying to process the trauma they endured. The perspective of many of the photographs look as though Papo is the viewer, an observer of her own life. The images create this journey of her losing touch with herself and simultaneously being the lifeblood of another. The viewer is given an intimate and unique allowance into the process of not only taking care, but getting to know oneself and their newborn.
It's Been Pouring by Rachel Papo ©
It's Been Pouring by Rachel Papo ©
Papo’s work does not offer a solution, but rather a community and a normalization of the true experience for many. The culmination of the written word and her photography create this narrative, bringing to light the truth that the first year of motherhood is not always what it seems, or what a young mother expects it to be. It is a comfortable place for someone experiencing those feelings to no longer feel they are alone in these struggles. Papo’s courage to share her art and her words opens her world to the viewer, inventibly making some uncomfortable, some sympathetic, and most importantly some relieved they are not the only one suffering just as she did.
