elsa lamartina
VISUAL ARTIST
I have no children but I am a mother
Fanzine - size 21x14.7 -
Paper: Iinterni Freelife Vellum White 120gr
Cover Freelife Vellum White 260gr
Contact me to ask me for further information
I was born in 1977.
On November 7, 1988, my period appears, I'm frightened and I don't know who to tell. At school they call my mother to take me home. Shut up, I listen to her: the usual talk about periods and about the fact that I had to talk to her about it. I don't want anyone to know.
The first problems appear soon, the cycle is not regular. Visits after visits, but we don't know why this problem exists. Time passes and, at 19, I am diagnosed with premature menopause. The gynecologist tells me: “Think of sex as having to go to the gym to work out”.
I'm starting to have to deal with the fact that I can't have children.
I don't know if I have to suffer from this thing or not. I feel that I have to suffer, society imposes it on me and suggests it. I hear things like "Until you have children you will not be a woman" or "You won't feel complete until you have children", or again "But no, children are beautiful because you say you don't want them! Everyone wants them” and even “It's because you don't want to grow and become adult, an eternal peter pan in the feminine!” or "How will you do if your mate wants them?”.
I just think that if fate gave me "this thing" there will be a reason. At 34 I decide that perhaps I can try egg donation. I do it in Barcelona, Spain. In the meantime, however, I keep asking myself: “But do I want it? I have to want it since I can't have it?”.
Result of the egg donation, negative. I don't understand, but I cry there too. I'm crying because I have to tell my partner and my mother, and then the bad impression in front of those who knew… The following days I'm nervous, I have to let go of my anger and also all the medicines I've taken. At that point I say to myself: “I won't try again, if fate didn't want it, there will be a reason”.
Years go by but I still have this doubt that haunts me and I realize that by now I am moving away from friends who have had children.
At 42 I still don't have an answer, my brother has a son and I say to myself: "Thank goodness, at least my mother won't press me anymore".
At 43 I finally have the answer: I don't want children, I'm sure of it.
It was my dog who gave me the answer.In 2020 I decided that I would have Diana, my dog, give birth at home and that I would take care of the 8 Border Collie puppies. Being the mother of many animal puppies helped me discover that I was already a mother even without children physically conceived by me. It was an experience that put me to the test psychically and physically, and this made me realize that I loved my life and being a woman as I was and I didn't need a child.
That was fine, my "being a mother" had already been active for a long time but, until then, I hadn't realized it.
Society has changed, I have met women who regret having children and women who have chosen not to have children with great awareness.
Diptych print on glossy photo paper and print on recycled paper
format 50x70cm
format 50x70cm
Print on glossy paper
size 50x50cm
Cotton paper printing
white cassette frame
I still feel like a mother because I "give birth" every time I create a project, I feed it and make it grow, accompanying it into the world. I am a mother every time I take care of myself, people in need and animals. Every time I protect myself and others, every time I'm patient like a mother would with her child.
Acetate print
dimensions 134x90
Who has never found himself parenting his own parent?
Who has never protected their animal as a mother would with her human child? There are many ways to experience one's "inner mother" but I think that each one must find the key to accepting it, even if very often only after giving birth women understand that this was not the right way to be a mother for them.
In practice, what I have understood from my experience and which I would like to be useful as a concept for all the women who will see and experience it, is that the principle of creation goes beyond the conception of a child. As women we are in the service of the Great Mother Earth.
I have no children but I am a mother tells this journey towards this awareness, it wants to be a project that began with a personal story, but which aspires to become universal.
Project by elsa lamartina,
Made in collaboration withviaggiofotosensibili.com
Print on acetate
size 70x100cm
Print dbond
size 50x70cm
Installation at the Off Circuit of the Festival of Ethical Photography 2022