Giving birth is a rite of passage. It is one of the most significant and life-altering moments of transformation a person can experience — whether we give birth vaginally or by caesarean, in a forest or in a highly medicalised hospital setting.

As an experimental filmmaker, I’ve become obsessed with how birth is represented in visual media – particularly the emergence phase of labour, the moment when the baby’s body begins to appear.

Looking at birth films and photography, I noticed: until very recently, this moment was rarely represented without hands involved.