Our Great Symbols Are Empty
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Dates2021 - Ongoing
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Author
A poetic and scientific investigation into the maternal brain changes and their consequences on both the physical and mental health of women, in relation not to her child, but on them as humans.
Last year I asked myself, do mothers exist without their children? Would we know of Mary without Jesus?
80% of women become mothers, yet so little is investigated about this role and its consequences, on their own terms and not just in how it will affect her child. Yet every person in this world was birthed by a woman. Think about it, all 7.7 billion of us. However the NIH spends 11% specifically on women's health, let alone to mothers, and this is a pattern in many countries.
I wasn’t the same person I was before my children. When the mist finally cleared, I was finally able to stare at the world underneath my feet and understood: I was just not in the same place. My whole evaluation of an environment had changed, it was now spiked, saturated. And the implications of this new world is what birthed this 5 year unconscious photographic investigation: everyday scenes, family and now, female brains, all by my hands distorted, perverted.
For the last 7 months I’ve spent all my time vastly researching scientific studies on the maternal and the female brains, and their changes. I've investigated countless neuroscience papers, discussed with scientists and even had a visit to the neurosurgical O.R. in use. This project (exhibition and book) is a diary of both these journeys: the journey as a mother, the journey as a researcher.
A diary weaving together a truth lived by so many yet understood by so few, with the threads of candid instant photography, poetry and science.
For the viewer, the front door is art, but the room she/he will find behind this door is fact. For mothers, this is a path they have walked before, I’m handing them a map for context and better navigation. Yet I’m more interested in non-mothers (both male and female) joining me on this journey. Hoping that through better understanding and empathy society will invest more in this maternal world, by the way of scientific research and policies, and better the health conditions for 80% of these women who we know so little from, yet carry society on their shoulders.
All images are made on instant film, Fuji and Polaroid.
The background images are based on altered projections of real MRI and Histology images from mostly Hispanic, African American and Caucasian women in ages ranging from 30-50 years old. The original images i used to create my own are credit of the Allen Institute who kindly approved by written form the use for this project in form of a book and an exhibition.
The other personal scenes are also made on instant film, with either light effects on location or pre-exposure alteration of the film to achieve the heavy saturation or unnatural color expressions needed to mirror my maternal view.
Thank you.