BY: CHRISTIAN BERTHELOT
Sweat and suspense are words that accurately describe the moments spent in a delivery room. The first time that Christian Berthelot experienced a caesarean birth, the planned birth went awry and an emergency C-section was performed as a last ditch attempt to save his child. Then finally, the knife-like cry a newborn baby cut through the tension. His first son emerged in front of his father’s eyes like “a warrior who had just won his first battle.”
This surreal experience caused Berthelot to spend the past 12 months photographing more that 40 C-section babies in a series he calls Caesar. Some may find these images a little crass due to their direct confrontation with the brutality of birth. Yet creation has never been clean and elegant, and it is this realization that lies as the pulsing heart of his work.
In the first few seconds of life, the world is experienced most deeply, with fear and joy, fragility and strength inexorably bound together.
Caesar will be on view at the Circulation(s) festival from January 24th to March 5th.
1: Romane – born May 20, 2014 at 10:51 a.m. 2kg 935 – 8 seconds of life
2: Kevin – born December 27, 2013 at 10:36 a.m. 4kg 366 – 13 seconds of life
3: Liza – born February 26, 2013 at 8:45 a.m. 3kg 200 – 3 seconds of life
4: Louann – born April 12, 2013 at 8:40 a.m. 3kg 574 – 14 seconds life
5: Mael – born December 13, 2013 at 4:52 p.m. 2kg 800 – 18 seconds of life
6: Steven – born December 21, 2013 at 4:31 p.m. 2kg 425 – 15 seconds of life
7: Lize – born December 24, 2013 at 8:49 a.m. 3kg 574 – 9 seconds of life
8: Leanne – born April 8, 2014 at 8:31 a.m. 1kg 745 – 13 seconds of life
All images © Christian Berthelot
