When New York photographer Naima Green married fellow artist Sable Elyse Smith, the inevitable question from friends and acquaintances soon followed: would they have a baby?
Green, who teaches and often photographs pregnant friends and new parents, found herself reflecting on that question more seriously. She has long loved children but remains ambivalent about motherhood — torn between curiosity and hesitation. “Is it about raising a child,” she wondered, “or about this fixation on what people’s bodies go through?”
Three years ago, at 32, a doctor told her she should have started trying earlier — advice that left her questioning time, biology, and the cultural expectations placed on women’s bodies.
Turning the Lens on Herself
In the midst of these reflections, Green purchased a 20-pound silicone baby bump. Initially unsure how to use it, she tucked it away until a conversation with curator Elisabeth Sherman reignited the idea. The result, after more than a year of work, is “Instead, I spin fantasies,” a solo exhibition now showing at New York’s International Center of Photography.
The exhibition merges staged imagery and lived experience — self-portraits of Green navigating an imagined pregnancy are interwoven with intimate photos of real parents, expectant couples, and community scenes. The result is an honest meditation on the blurred lines between aspiration, identity, and belonging.
“What feels critical to this work,” Green explained, “is that I’m not pointing to an answer. I’m exploring an expansive picture — across geographies, classes, and ideas of family — to imagine new possibilities for family-making.”
Reimagining Family and Connection
Green’s series challenges conventional narratives about motherhood and community. Living in New York City, she observed how many follow a familiar script: meet a partner, start a family, then move to the suburbs — often losing daily contact with friends and extended support networks.
Even among her queer peers, who share progressive views on family and care, she noticed similar isolation. “There’s this idea that your nuclear family must be entirely self-sufficient,” she said. “But the people I’ve built my life with — my partner, my friends — I want them to be part of raising a child. It should be a collective effort.”
Through her images, Green presents this idea visually: she appears in posed “family” portraits with fellow artist DonChristian as a fictional partner, stages domestic scenes that feel both intimate and performative, and plays with symbols of modern motherhood — sometimes ironic, sometimes tender.
Challenging the Image of Motherhood
Green’s work also interrogates who gets to be seen as a mother. In one striking image, shot by her wife in a Philadelphia hotel room, Green stands in a rolled-up T-shirt, the edges of the prosthetic bump visible against her skin. She struggled to find a prosthetic that matched her complexion — an unplanned but poignant reminder of racial bias in how motherhood is visually represented.
Other photos explore societal taboos: Green lounges with a cigarette nearby or sits in a kiddie pool, half-hidden behind a video camera, commenting on the commodification of family life. “Intimate family moments become part of a brand,” she muses in accompanying text, referencing how social media often monetizes private experiences.
Body, Control, and Expectation
As the project evolved, Green found herself revisiting the anxieties and expectations surrounding motherhood. Friends confided that pregnancy had been the only time they felt liberated from body image pressures; others shared experiences of obsessive diet routines or rejecting all advice entirely.
“People reach for whatever makes them feel in control during a really wild time,” she said. “Who am I to say what’s right or wrong for them? But culturally, we have so many opinions about what mothers are supposed to do.”
Her ongoing series continues to expand as new experiences inform her vision. Recently, she began collaborating with a close friend planning to become pregnant, offering to live with her during the early weeks after childbirth. “To be deeply rooted in community means we’re all responsible for each other,” she said. “That idea of shared care — that excites me. It’s how I want to think about friendship and family.”
Reframing the Narrative of Care
In “Instead, I spin fantasies,” Green doesn’t provide answers — she offers possibilities. Her work invites audiences to rethink motherhood not as a singular destiny, but as a layered social and emotional experience shaped by choice, imagination, and connection.
Through humor, honesty, and vulnerability, Green’s photography reclaims the narratives of family from rigid expectations and situates them within the broader framework of community care.
As she put it, “I’m interested in a vision that invites more trusted people into the life of the child.”
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