Maternage – Traces of a journey

The exhibition has started from a project ofl'abilità (The ability), a non-profit organization founded in Milan in October 1998 by a group of parents of children with disabilities. In 2013 the organization gave empty suitcases to the families involved in the project In viaggio senza valigie (Traveling without luggage), asking them to pack them with objects that symbolized their living (or surviving) with children with disabilities.

The content of the suitcases were then handed to the artist Laura Morelli, who has turned them into a series of art installations with evocative titles. Through Maternage, a French word that goes beyond genres and that indicates the inclination to child care, visitors will have the opportunity to enter the 'shell' of these families, understanding their emotions and experiences. The invitation is to try to get in their homes and to live an everyday life that often scares because it is different, it is made of suffering and it does not affect our reality. Maternage is held in a museum because it is a work of art and, as such, it can speak to diverse audiences. Maternage is an exhibition that makes you think, that educates, and that is a contradiction, just like art and everyday life are.

The exhibition
The exhibition winds through three rooms, where the spectators come in contact with the intimacy of the family of a child with disabilities. This encounter occours through sensory experiences, inspired by the objects that emerged from the suitcases and by the parents' stories. The images, smells, and sounds of the first rooms evoke emotions, experiences, and dreams of fathers, mothers and siblings of children with disabilities.

In the first room the visitor will find a floor covered with a carpet of powdered vanilla sugar and spices (turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, Moroccan saffron, curry), which represent the result of the sensory information collected during the interviews with parents, brothers, and sisters. Objects that are related to the waiting lie on the fragant carpet, which is interrupted by a path that reproduces the logo of the organization l'abilità.

The second room houses an installation entitled Lo sguardo senza veli: at the center, a sphere made of mirrors is suspended over a bed of onions. To the sides, you can hear the words of parents, brothers and sisters through four headphones, conveying their own feelings. You can select the track "female" and the track "male." The last room describes the project Traveling without luggage and the genesis of the exhibition, giving the viewer the opportunity to express which 'suitcases' are essential for their life journey.

Free admission