“Māter” is about a different way of connecting with our surroundings, recognizing that everything we take for granted is political — a construction that evolved from a context very different from the one we live in today.

Through the multiplicity of meanings contained within the word māter, the exhibition seeks to expand our understanding of how motherhood, caregiving, and procreation can be interpreted through binary, non-binary, human, and non-human perspectives.

The semantic breadth of māter frees us from prejudices surrounding the figure of the mother. This shift releases motherhood from its monolithic conception and from the notion that there is only one proper or acceptable way to be a mother. Motherhood begins to take on many new nuances, encompassing ideas of care, nurturing, and protection, but also creation, reproduction, and multiplication.

In the exhibition, we explore several lines of inquiry. On one hand, the temporality and subjectivity of social and scientific knowledge surrounding the body and the reproductive process, and how this knowledge both shapes and is shaped by its environment. On the other hand, the politics of religion, which affect the way we understand the world around us, as well as how we perceive “the other.” Finally, we examine alternative forms of non-anthropocentric motherhood and their relationship to a non-patriarchal form of witchcraft connected to care.

Each exhibition space holds its own connections to motherhood. The former Santo Spirito Hospital in Rabat was a place where many cases of motherhood without a mother occurred, and it still preserves a ruota — a foundling wheel — within its walls.

The “Casa Provincial de Maternitat i Expòsits de Barcelona” (La Maternitat) functioned as a mother to mothers themselves, raising unwanted infants using the latest technologies of each era and providing them with education throughout childhood.

For this exhibition, we draw inspiration from the writings of Silvia Federici, whose work dissects the intersections between capitalism, patriarchy, and the exploitation of women’s labor, particularly within the historical context of the subjugation of women and the witch hunts of the early Modern period. Our intention is to critically examine the political dynamics of religion and its mechanisms of coercion and influence, while also finding refuge in the inclusive space of the coven — a space that allows for the exploration of alternative interpretations of ourselves and of the other.

With “Māter,” we stand for mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and also for those who consciously choose another way of being. We refrain from judgment, directing scrutiny exclusively toward societies that marginalize alternative forms of knowledge and oppress those who forge their own paths, while also creating a platform for conversations around contemporary feminist concerns.