Launched in 2021 as a personal project, Bergmark-Jiménez's documentary series pairs unfiltered, intimate portraits with her own reflections on birth, parenthood and life in modern society. 

For the past four years, as part of her project "Swedish Births," the photographer has been documenting births across Sweden, each with its own unique circumstances and process.

"To be Born and to Give Birth" traces every stage of childbirth in a journey into the most intimate space and greatest moment of humans — a place where everything changes and the clock restarts.

It is also a journey into Bergmark-Jiménez herself — a "baptism through the amniotic fluid and a reckoning with the fear of birth," both society's and her own — and a story about the existential aspect of delivering a child, and about becoming and being human.

"It's the most common thing," Bergmark-Jiménez told "Aktuaalne kaamera" Thursday. "Everything that is within the human being comes out in birth — fear, hope, joy, euphoria, pain — everything."

She noted that we live in a time where a lot of births and private lives are shared more publicly, including on social media.

"But you have to remember that it's very, very curated," she continued. "And I think I just wanted to get in there myself and try to make it come out as very, very honest as possible."

"To be Born and to Give Birth" runs at Fotografiska Tallinn through Sunday, February 15.

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