Kennedi Carter

Domestic Bliss in an Observable Universe

Dates: 2022 - ongoing

In the weeks leading up to my son’s birth, I chose to keep my pregnancy private, shielding my journey into motherhood from even those closest to me. Instead, I turned to my family and community with questions—asking about their childhoods, their lovers, and the children they brought into the world. From these conversations, I was left wondering: How does intergenerational lore shape our entry into parenthood? How do family dynamics influence our understanding of mothering?

After an emergency Cesarean brought my premature son earthside, I was left with both physical and emotional wounds. He spent 82 days in the NICU, and in the moments I wasn’t by his bedside, I turned to my practice as a way to process my birth trauma. I photographed my healing body, capturing its slow, deliberate process of stitching itself back together. I documented the matriarchs in my family, the new mothers in my community, and those who mother in ways beyond childbirth—queer house mothers, surrogates, foster parents, and young women practicing the act of mothering with dolls.

Domestic Bliss in an Observable Universe is a photographic exploration of Black matrescence, lineage, and family lore passed down through generations. It attempts to understand how we inherit, embody, and redefine the act of mothering.