PACHA MANAS
A project by Marina Alegre & Margherita Isola
Thanks to the support of the Goethe Institut of São Paulo.
2020 > 2022
Pacha Manas addresses abortion and its criminalisation. Abortion shapes the lives of countless women around the world, and speaking about it becomes especially urgent in countries such as Brazil, where it remains criminalised.
Beginning with the autobiographical experiences of their own abortions, Margherita and Marina confront the violence through which abortion is silenced and censored. Through encounters with comrades, women, and plants, they collectivise wounds, struggles, hopes, and forms of knowledge, transforming personal experiences into collective processes of care, healing, and solidarity.
Inspired by the cyclical nature of life, Pacha Manas unfolded through a series of itinerant circles that brought together women, plants, and embroidery, alongside the collaborative creation of a hanging garden and a publication.
Embroidery is approached as a regenerative collective practice: as conversations unfold, hands continue stitching, allowing gestures, memories, and stories to shape the dialogue.
These circles took place across São Paulo with women encountered in public spaces and later expanded online during the pandemic through collaborations with the Goethe-Institut and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. The online gatherings featured contributions from Indigenous philosopher and educator Cristina Takua; ethnobotanist Eliana Rodriguez; Cleone Santos, founder of the NGO Mulheres da Luz, which supports women engaged in prostitution; and Andrea Alves, a Black dancer and choreographer, mother, and member of the Marcha das Mulheres Negras of São Paulo.
Pacha Manas also took the form of an installation honouring the victims of unsafe and criminalised abortions—women who, in most cases, are Black, racialised, and poor, and who lost their lives after being denied the fundamental rights to healthcare and bodily autonomy. At least 140 women die each year in Brazil as a result of unsafe abortions.
To honour their memory, we created a hanging garden on the courtyard wall of the Goethe-Institut using vulva-shaped planting bags filled with traditional abortifacient plants such as rue, São Caetano melon, pennyroyal, parsley, and others.
Pacha Manas is also a publication that brings together texts from multiple perspectives by Brazilian and international women, including texts and embroideries by the two artists. Edited by Editora Funilaria, the book invites reflection on abortion, patriarchy, reproductive autonomy, care, and traditional knowledge, among other topics.
The publication has been presented through participatory reading sessions, in which excerpts from the book are shared and interwoven with collective embroidery and conversation.
Reading-performance tour:
8 December 2022- Goethe Institut, São Paulo
21 December 2022 - Funarte, São Paulo
27 January 2023 - Fundación Entredos, Madrid
Pacha Manas is one of the projects hosted by the Biennial Women in the Visual Arts.
