The star of the photographer Andi Galdi Vinko was on the rise when she became pregnant. Now she works ‘on borrowed time’. She started taking pictures of her new life, in order to continue to prove her existence as a photographer, but also as a caring mother.
A 2019 online pre-publication of the book Sorry I gave birth I disappeared but now I’m back by the Hungarian photographer Andi Galdi Vinko (40) provoked thousands of reactions in Hungary, many of them hateful. Men wrote, “I bet her husband treats her badly, and that’s why she’s showing how miserable her life is.” Many women responded with: ‘Everyone knows that motherhood is hard, you don’t have to show it.’
Then what does she show? A woman who has just given birth in a diaper. Coming front teeth. A crawling baby leaving a wet trail on the bedding. A nipple with a drop of milk floating close above a child’s eye. Tupperware filled with breast milk.
Galdi Vinko also took a picture in the toilet. You see her bare legs, stripped underpants and a child on the floor who looks into the camera with curious and expectant eyes. That toilet photo was perhaps the most provocative, it had to be staged, because ‘why doesn’t she just close the door?’ She didn’t have to formulate an answer herself. Dozens of women posted their own toilet photos, taken from the same perspective, including underpants and baby. Apparently Galdi Vinko wasn’t the only mother who lost her privacy after all.
Glorified ideal
There is a saying in Hungary: you must have three children, one for the father, one for the mother, one for the country. ‘The government propagates traditional family values and encourages marriage and children, but after conception it does not give a damn about the well-being of the family, especially the mothers. What parenting really is is hidden behind glossy magazines.’ It is this context in which seemingly innocent snaps from the life of a young parent can be perceived as offensive. So much realism challenges the glorified ideal of the Madonna and Child.
This was four years ago, now the series is a book and the reception has been much more positive. ‘Since corona and the lockdowns, I think we all know what it’s like to be housebound.’ Galdi Vinko never wanted to make a statement anyway, she just wanted to record her new life. The photos are therefore not activism, but ‘an observation of parenthood’. She did notice how little she saw her own life in the picture: ‘Motherhood is underrepresented in art all over the world, not just in Hungary.’
Her image of motherhood came from paintings by old – male – masters that she saw in the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre, paintings of breastfeeding and caring for children. looks natural. Her mother had raised three children almost alone, taken for granted, without talking about it. At the art academy she did learn the vulnerable and at the same time powerful photos Rineke Dijkstra know, who photographed women immediately after childbirth, ‘but I had no idea what it meant until I was in one of those diapers myself.’
Borrowed time
When Galdi Vinko became pregnant, her star as a photographer rising. She lived in London and Paris and led a fast-paced life, with a lot of travel and meetings. “Beautiful things were happening.” Once pregnant, she moved back to Budapest, close to family, nature around the corner.
‘I got a whole new body, with new functions. My breasts were once beautiful ornaments and became those gigantic cows.’ And then all those hormonal changes. Being intensely in love with your child, only to be intensely bored a moment later. But also the feeling that the world moves on, while you stand still. Galdi Vinko writes in her book, “Now I am a mother of two, working on borrowed time in the hope that the years I lost to motherhood can be added to my resume without guilt or shame.”
The title of the book is a sentence that Galdi Vinko wrote to a client when she checked her mail for the first time two weeks after giving birth to her first daughter in 2016: sorry I gave birth, I disappeared, but I’m back. The offered photo assignment had long since been forgiven, but the sentence stuck with her. What Galdi Vinko wanted to say with that, to shout to the outside world, is: don’t forget me. “Okay, I’m breastfeeding now, my nipples are bleeding, it hurts, and yet I’m going because everyone says kids get sick when they’re bottle-fed. But I’ll be back. I know my daughter is safe and sound, but should I still worry about no one calling me for shoots anymore? Or am I just a nagging bitch? Why am I not enjoying this? How can something as universal as motherhood be so lonely? And why is the child, also made with a sperm cell, so much less disruptive to my husband’s life?’
Survival strategy
To have proof that she was doing all kinds of things, she started taking pictures. ‘When my husband came home and asked what I had been doing all day, I could say, well, I took a picture of all the bloody muslin diapers I folded. For me, that was my survival strategy. To continue to prove my existence as a photographer, but also as a caring mother.’ At the same time, it is self-deprecating, says Galdi Vinko, chuckling at the irony of life.
For six years she took pictures in this way, first of herself and two daughters, later also of friends. And yes, in between are the unavoidable liquids, often in unwanted places. And the inconvenience. And the hassle. But beauty, love and happiness also push forward. The round shapes of a pregnant body. Raspberries, one on each child’s finger. The bald spot on the back of a baby’s head. White buttocks with dimples that are firmly supported by grandma’s lived, brown arm. Because that’s what happens when you disappear.