By hand · Six studies

Sketches

Six drawings, read in order rather than at once — how India has designed for birth, from the Vedic household to the present-day ward. The sequence ends on her own proposal, set apart in maroon as the next term in the chronology, not a seventh historical period.

Vedic

Antiquity

Medieval

Courtly

Colonial

British rule

Post-independence

1947 onward

Present

Today

Design concept

Proposed

Sketch: birth in a Vedic-period household, attended by women of the family — Fig. 01 — Birth in the household, attended by women of the family.

Sketch: birth in an ornate medieval courtly chamber — Fig. 02 — Ornate interiors; the chamber as a space of status.

Sketch: a British colonial hospital ward, tiled and instrumented — Fig. 03 — The tiled, instrumented ward. Birth becomes procedure.

Sketch: post-independence ward, rows of iron beds behind curtains — Fig. 04 — Rows of iron beds behind curtains. Scale over privacy.

Sketch: a present-day water birth with greenery and the partner present — Fig. 05 — Water birth, greenery, the partner allowed in the room.

Sketch: the proposed design concept — arched, planted, open to a garden — Fig. 06 — Arched, planted, open to the garden. The next term in the sequence.

Vedic
Antiquity
Fig. 01 — Birth in the household, attended by women of the family.
Medieval
Courtly
Fig. 02 — Ornate interiors; the chamber as a space of status.
Colonial
British rule
Fig. 03 — The tiled, instrumented ward. Birth becomes procedure.
Post-independence
1947 onward
Fig. 04 — Rows of iron beds behind curtains. Scale over privacy.
Present
Today
Fig. 05 — Water birth, greenery, the partner allowed in the room.
Design concept
Proposed
Fig. 06 — Arched, planted, open to the garden. The next term in the sequence.

This reading of six centuries of birth spaces is the research The Growing Light grew from — a wellness centre, not absorbed here, but built on what these drawings argue.