The WOMB was an installation made up of combinations that do not have configuration specifications, including only silence. It is a one-to-one experience, in which viewers take time to listen and contemplate an automatic exploration of a story from my family, a textile story by my father and my birth at Convento dos Capuchos, where the first painless childbirth was tested in Guimarães, 1978.
ARTWORK
WOMB, 2020
Installation, linen, sound
Paulina Almeida is an eclectic and versatile Portuguese artist and performer. Her artistic practice, mainly developed for public spaces, is focused on the investigation of socially useful and participatory art.
In 2020 Almeida developed a project with Ideias Emergentes. Due to the pandemic situation she worked with a very unique community, her own family. By probing the memories of her parents, both her mother’s, about her birth in the former hospital, and her father’s, linked to the textil industry – she discovered how these stories can become collective and shared memories. The artist set out to investigate the topic of birth as a metaphor for new life.
From here, the artist created a sound installation, entitled Womb. The audio is contained inside a womb made of old fabrics belonging to her family. For the exhibition, the artist decided to open the Womb installation to other prompts linked to isolation stories, involving local female detainees at the Panevėžys Correction House, leading the visitors to live an individual and emotional experience.