PACHA MANAS
A project by Marina Alegre & Margherita Isola
Thanks to the support of the Goethe Institut of São Paulo.
2020 > 2022
Pacha Manas tackles the theme of abortion and its criminalisation. Abortion permeates the reality of many women all around the world but here in Brazil, where it is still criminalised, it becomes even more important to talk about it.
Starting from the autobiographical experiences of their respective abortions, Margherita and Marina counter the violence with which the experience of abortion is silenced and censored by meeting with comrades, women and plants, and together collectivising wounds, struggles, hopes and knowledge.
The project creates spaces for dialogue and solidarity, and promotes practices of resilience, healing and mutual care.
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Alluding to the cycles of life, the project resulted in a series of itinerant circles of women, plants and embroidery. alongside the collaborative creation of a hanging garden and a publication.
We consider embroidery to be a regenerative collective practice. For this reason, we organise women's circles that combine conversation, plants and embroidery. While we talk, our hands sew, letting our gestures guide the dialogue.
These circles have taken place across São Paulo with women we met in public spaces, as well as online during the pandemic organized in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. This online circle featured contributions from Cristina Takua (Indigenous philosopher and educator), Eliana Rodriguez (ethnobotanical researcher), Cleone Santos (Afro-Brazilian founder of Mulheres da Luz, an NGO supporting women in prostitution), and Andrea Alves (Afro-Brazilian dancer, choreographer, and member of the Marcha das Mulheres Negras of São Paulo).
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Pacha Manas is also an installation honoring victims of illegal abortions—women who lost their lives because they were denied basic rights to health and bodily autonomy. To remember them, we created a hanging garden on the courtyard wall of the Goethe-Institut, using vulva-shaped planting bags to hold traditional abortifacient plants such as rue, São Caetano melon, pennyroyal, parsley, and others.
Pacha Manas is also a book that gathers texts with multiple perspectives written by several Brazilian and non-Brazilian women, including the two artists. The book, edited by Editora Funilaria, invites reflection on abortion, patriarchy, reproductive autonomy, care and traditional knowledge, among other topics.
The publication has been presented as a participatory reading, sharing extracts of the book, and interwoven the reading with a collective tembroidery & talk.
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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.
