In 2019, the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières – also known as Doctors Without Borders or MSF - commissioned award-winning cartoonist Ella Baron to travel to its field hospital in Pibor, South Sudan. She spent several weeks interviewing and sketching staff and patients about the difficulties in accessing maternity care in this remote rural region. Rising star Ella Baron, who had scooped the Philip Geddes Prize for Foreign Reporting and Young Cartoonist of the Year already by this point, created an intimate and personal piece of graphic reportage out of her experience in the field. Her nine-page graphic short story follows the lives of three generations of women; Chacha, her daughter Laito, and Laito’s daughter Maria. Their story is the subject of The Cartoon Museum’s latest In-Focus capsule exhibition.

“She is my daughter; all of her is me” - Chacha

South Sudan is in the grip of a desperate humanitarian crisis. This graphic short story focuses on maternity care, and how access to it is severely limited by rural disconnect, social unrest and environmental disaster. But at its heart, this artwork isn’t limited to the country it depicts. Chacha and Laito’s story is a testament to the lengths that a mother will go to protect her child wherever she may be from. 

We’ll  be selling a print version of the graphic short story Ella Baron created alongside prints and other pieces of merchandise to do with the exhibition in our shop.