THE TROUBLE WITH WOMEN

We're told we can have it all, but at what cost?

If you have children you're expected to sacrifice but also to bounce back. If you don't, people question why. If you work full time you feel guilty for not being there enough. If you stay home you're asked when you'll get back to work. If you want children but can't have them you carry that pain in silence. If you choose not to, you're told you'll change your mind. Whatever choice you make, someone always has an opinion, as if your worth is up for debate.

A woman's peak earning years are the same years she is expected to have children, but society isn't built to support either.

Over the past year Lauren Joy Kennett has photographed women in their own homes across Hastings, responding to an open call. Mothers, women who don't want children, women who can't have them.

Each figure is hand cut from her portrait with a scalpel, leaving an empty space where her body should be, then laid back over the same image out of alignment. Each woman was then invited to write her own words across it in gold, in her own handwriting, in response to one question: what has been hardest to hold together?

For some, that writing happened a year after the photograph was taken. In that time some had babies. Some left jobs, countries or relationships. Some stayed. The gap between image and text holds that change.

The project is not finished. Women who feel unrepresented, or who have something to add, are invited to take part.

Supported by Arts Council England.