Winnicott emphasized that during the first months of life, the infant has no separate physical or emotional existence apart from the mother, or primary caregiver. Mother and infant exist as a single unit, a dyad. This stage is necessarily temporary; through the emerging gap between self and mother, the infant gradually comes to recognize its separateness, and, through this realization, its separation from the world itself.
From this perspective, the exhibition moves between longing and loss, creating a space for mourning a dream that never came to fruition, both on the part of the infant and of the mother. It reflects on the relinquishing of an ideal and on the attempt to come to terms with what remains.
The work Metronome consists of a metal structure through which breast milk slowly dripped until it was exhausted, accompanied by a video triptych presenting close-up views of the process of depletion. Alongside it is the series Milk Prints, documenting traces left by dried milk on metal plates, delicate, almost archaeological remnants of what might have been.
The drawing series Horizon Line focuses on the point of contact between mouth and nipple. Fragmentation and magnification create a sense of estrangement: the intimate image is transformed into an abstract landscape, distant and unattainable. In this way, the work reveals how the idealization of the maternal bond can exist only in isolated moments, as an elusive memory rather than an enduring reality.
In Mother Mold, plaster casts poured into breast milk storage bags, and in Shed Skins, clay shells of a pre-birth belly, a frozen moment takes shape, a memorial to what never materialized.
The exhibition offers a space of lamentation and artistic ritual: a place in which one may part from the ideal motherhood that never existed, appearing only fleetingly and forever beyond reach. This personal lament intertwines with a broader contemporary condition, a world in which life beyond the boundaries of the personal sphere increasingly evokes fear and chaos, a return to a state before language, before objecthood. Yet at the same time, this regression invites us to remember that we are part of a single human fabric. We are born yearning for the other.
Curator: Meir Sidi
