Brown and white stoneware; etched surface and glazed; FIRED AT cone 10
Throughout the ancient world, particularly in Near Eastern societies, motherhood figurines were ubiquitous. Votive statues depicting breastfeeding mothers or women cradling infants were offered to goddesses of fertility, healing, and childbirth as acts of protection over children and family lines. In Gaza, where every second person of the population is a child, I bear witness every day to injured children, children with amputations, with burns and fractures, with shrapnel wounds, and internal injuries. I bear witness to traumatized mothers, mothers who have lost their children, grieving mothers, or mothers so completely broken that they wait to die. Against this backdrop of systemic violence, as a woman with a uterus, I feel this pain deeply in my womb. I began creating an ongoing series of votive sculptures: infants nestled in the arms of a mother figurine, the first place we perceive our physical existence and learn to love. Women have always created ritual objects to safeguard children and communities. By reactivating the votive form, I attempt to carry forward an ancient practice of protection to pray, show up in solidarity, and honor all of our martyrs, the Palestinian people, the land, and the liberation struggle.