I’m Remi White, a mother.

You might ask why I introduce myself first as a mother.

It’s not because motherhood is the only thing I am. But because it’s the truest lens through which I now see the world.

Before that, I have dedicated years on the mats. Jiu-Jitsu has been part of my life since I was a teenager. I trained, taught, and competed internationally. From Istanbul to Tel Aviv, from Paris to Amsterdam, from Lisbon to Baku, and beyond.

Each of these experiences allowed me to discover my limits. And how to push past them. But nothing challenged me more than birth.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked as a front line worker in adult care, supporting elderly people living with dementia, right up to their last breath. That time taught me how to listen. How to hold space. How to witness vulnerability with strength and compassion.

Still, the most physically and mentally demanding thing I have ever done was giving birth.

Both of my children, Russell and Rosalyn, were born at home, right on the Jiu-Jitsu mats in our living room. My husband caught them with his hands and placed them on my chest. I still remember the silence, the weight, the electricity in the air. Nothing compares.

But it wasn’t without struggle. Shortly after Russell was born, I was hospitalised with a breast infection. In those early, blurry days, I believed the hardest part was behind me, that giving birth made me a mother, and everything else would fall into place. I thought my milk would come in naturally, and my baby would instinctively know how to feed. I didn’t yet understand that this too was an active process. One that had to be learned, supported, and sustained. I stopped breastfeeding, hoping to avoid further complications, my body stopped producing too. For first 3 months, I accepted it, but the decision stayed with me, heavy. I read everything I could to educate myself. I began the long journey to relactate and I did. Slowly, with persistence, I brought my milk back, started nourishing my son once again. In preparation for my second child, I chose to build on what I’d learned, and became a certified breastfeeding peer supporter, and began volunteering with local support groups, offering guidance to mothers navigating those early days. Sometimes messy, often overwhelming, always deeply human.

I do have photos, little pieces captured on a phone. And I treasure them. But they’re fragments. What I long for now is something more: a fuller story, told with intention. The kind of photographs you only get when someone is there just for that. Whose sole purpose is to witness with care, with focus, and more importantly with a deep personal understanding of how much it all means.

That’s how Art of Birth was born.

Not from ambition. From longing.

A longing to preserve what I couldn’t. A wish to give others what I didn’t have. A way to return to those once in a lifetime moments and see them clearly, fully, beautifully.