The International Center of Photography presents Instead, I spin fantasies, a new exhibition by Naima Green that reimagines the visual language of pregnancy through self-portraiture, landscape, and still life. Moving fluidly between documentation and performance, Green constructs images that question how society defines motherhood and the pregnant body while proposing a more expansive and personal view of its possibilities.
Curated by Elisabeth Sherman, the exhibition features dozens of new works that employ both historical and contemporary photographic processes, including albumen and lumen printing. A site-specific vinyl installation transforms the museum’s third-floor gallery, enveloping visitors in Green’s visual world. Sherman notes that the exhibition is a forward-looking meditation on how photography can open up new ways of imagining identity and experience, rather than simply recording what has been.
Through fragmented narratives and overlapping scenes, Green’s photographs construct a layered vision of pregnancy as both intimate and collective. Her images depict moments of domestic routine—taking out the trash, resting, self-care—alongside gestures that challenge societal expectations, such as smoking or drinking. These acts become reflections on how notions of respectability shape the visibility of pregnant bodies, particularly in media and art.
Friends, lovers, and chosen family populate Green’s photographs, weaving a sense of community into her imagined worlds. The images oscillate between tenderness and defiance, humor and gravity, acknowledging the emotional complexity of creating and sustaining life. Embedded references to medical systems and institutional pressures remind viewers of the broader contexts that frame these personal moments.
In Instead, I spin fantasies, Green’s work resists linear storytelling, inviting viewers to move between realities, emotions, and identities. What emerges is not a single story of pregnancy, but a constellation of possible lives—each charged with beauty, uncertainty, and the quiet power of reinvention.
Image: Naima Green, Half on a baby (DonChristian), 2025 © Naima Green
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