Complex maternities, before, during or after pregnancy, are no longer taboo. Today, women, and also art, as we have seen on stages and in literature, confronts them and analyzes them. It’s just another way of standing up.
In the montage [Èxit] through the gift shop, Girona artist Carla Rovira reflects on normative developments and asks us how we face experiences that do not fit with the model that has been explained to us. Its production follows a journey through medical processes, the concepts of success and failure associated with pregnancy, what is called ableism, what it means to be a mother today or what a dignified and viable life is, which are some of the questions that this piece presents to us.
“What if the creature you are carrying is not born alive? What does it mean to be a mother? “Would you carry out a pregnancy if the child has a disability?” These are some of the questions that Rovira asks us in the installation of her [Èxit] through the gift shop, based on her own experience.
The synopsis reads: “On March 12, 2020, she is given the worst news she could expect. She does not know if the child she is carrying will be born alive. In the montage-installation the audience follows their journey to discover if they will successfully reach the end and if they will get that precious thing: the baby.”
This montage, in whose title the artist plays with the meaning of the word èxit (‘success’ in Catalan and ‘exit’ in English), could be seen at FiraTàrrega 2022.
