DISSE FÊMEA*

Mother, epitome of love.

From whom and from which comes the knowledge of love, loving and being loved. Thanks to parental figures, whether biological or not, we learn to love, and patterns of (dis)affection and behavior are perpetuated. It is also thanks to them that we are able to break other patterns. 

One of the stereotypical roles assigned to a woman is determined by her biology: to be a mother. But if the 19th and 20th centuries began to question the place that women occupied in society, claiming rights and freedoms that were socially forbidden to them, then the body and the appropriation that women make of their own bodies became not only a vehicle but also a form of resistance.

This form of resistance is the motto for Disse Fêmea. Through photographs, the support of the written word and archive images, the author creates a visual dialog between mother and daughter, questioning the continuity of roles once considered immutable and the individual choices that a woman “can” or cannot make. Disse Fêmea works on the symbolism of a woman's choice not to be a mother. From the rights that have been won and enshrined comes the appropriation of her own body and the choice of her path, which may not be through motherhood, in an ideological representation that a woman's identity is separate from her social and biological role. 

Disse Fêmea is a project about the body, the passage of time, affection and absence. It's about achievements resulting from resistance. It's a thank you. And it's also a tribute to motherhood and the women in my family.

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*The title Disse Fêmea is a reference to Jorge Palma's song from the album É Prohibido Fumar (2001).