The world we inhabit, our flesh and bones, is not nourished by material alone but by the weight of our imagination.

Naturkulturpolitik, 2023 Lynne Kouassi and Nora Heidorn Editioned bookmark Printed, hand-stamped, and folded transparent paper. In their artistic project Naturkulturpolitik, Nora Heidorn and Lynne Kouassi examine illustrations of birthing positions from an historical obstetrics book using an intersectional perspective. The editioned bookmark makes an artistic intervention into the book 'Labor among primitive peoples' by George Engelmann (1883). It was first shown in the exhibition Naturkulturpolitik at K19 Studios Berlin, Germany in the autumn of 2023. The bookmark is printed onto transparent, absinthe-green paper that contrasts with the worn cover of the book and its yellowed pages, clearly distinguishing it as a contemporary intervention. The transparent paper allows for the book’s pages to be seen through the bookmark, allowing for the two objects and their texts and imagery to be in conversation. Made of a circle with two folds, the bookmark invites interaction from the user, who can unfold it to reveal a drawing and a quote inside, which already announce themselves through the transparent layers. “The world we inhabit, our flesh and bones, is not nourished by material alone but by the weight of our imagination.” The quote is from a short text commissioned for the project from the writer and historian of medicine Dr Edna Bonhomme, who conversed with the thought of James Baldwin in her piece. This particular sentence resonates with our work on 'Labour among primitive peoples' as it testifies to the power of the imagination in shaping our world, including the racist medical and scientific imaginaries which produce(d) knowledge about, and which shape(d) the care for, our flesh and bones. The simple line drawing that has been stamped onto the top of each bookmark derives from an illustration in 'Labour among primitive peoples'. It is a cropped and modified close-up from a postpartum scene in which a midwife crouches in front of a standing person who has just birthed a baby. At the centre of the crop, the midwife’s thumb and index finger hold the umbilical cord that is still attached to the placenta inside the birthing person’s womb and to the bellybutton of the baby. As the midwife holds the baby on her arm, the three wait for the birthing person to deliver the afterbirth.