Cambridge Encounters for the University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge commissioned this piece as part of their Public Engagement project Cambridge Creative Encounters, bringing research to the public through illustration and animation. 

This project, featuring three illustrations and a GIF, was a collaboration with Cambridge researchers Dr Alice Reid and  Sophy Arulanantham, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge and Dr Eilidh Garrett; Department of History, University of Essex.

The researchers are investigating fertility in women between 1870 - 1930 and the piece illustrates the decline in family size as well as suggesting the child mortality rates with the shadow children representing those who were lost. This was common practice in Victorian family photographs who would leave a gap in family photos where the dead child would have been. 

Find out more about this research at Populations Past.

The Creative projects were made possible by Wellcome ISSF funding.