About the Film

POSTPARTUM IS FOREVER is a short experimental film that reimagines Black maternal mental health beyond the narrow bounds of the perinatal period. Inspired by Chanel Portia-Albert’s phrase “postpartum is forever,” the film insists that birth is a threshold with no return—its impact unfolds across the entire lifespan.

Through movement, archival footage, and symbolism, the film confronts how violence, stress, and grief shape Black reproductive lives. It grounds this narrative in RowVaughn Wells’ account of empathic motherhood after the killing of her son, Tyre Nichols, and layers this with voices of Black mothers, scholars, and artists who illuminate the psychic survival strategies of Black motherhood.

The film emerges as both scholarship and art—an experiment in making language, temporality, and method that resonate with the lived experiences of Black birthing people.

Why Postpartum Is Forever

• Challenges the narrow clinical frame of “perinatal” mental health.
• Reclaims maternal as a resonant temporal frame for Black women.
• Connects reproductive mental health with intergenerational stress, violence, and disablement.
• Frames empathic motherhood as a technology of survival in the afterlife of slavery.

Co-Performative Witnessing

Drawing on D. Soyini Madison’s concept of co-performative witnessing, this project embodies a collective experience. Nadia’s own physical pain and recovery become a bridge for amplifying others’ stories—acknowledging that the postpartum bodymind bears witness not only to birth, but to the violence of a society that continuously threatens Black motherhood.

Work in Progress

POSTPARTUM IS FOREVER is currently in development. As the project evolves, so too does the methodology—foregrounding relation, embodiment, and survival as central to imagining new futures for Black reproductive mental health.

Bibliography & Filmography

(Selected Works Cited in the Film and Project)

• Alexander, M. Jacqui. Pedagogies of Crossing (2006)
• Bailey, Moya, and Izetta Autumn Mobley. Work in the Intersections (2019)
• Geronimus, Arline T. Weathering (2023)
• Hartman, Saidiya. The Belly of the World (2016)
• McKittrick, Katherine. Dear Science (2020)
• Mullings, Leith. Sojourner Syndrome (2005)
• Ralph, Laurence. The Torture Letters (2020)
• Shange, Savannah. Progressive Dystopia (2019)
• Olsson, Göran. The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975 (2011)