Parir los pétalos 

Parir los pétalos (translating to ‘give birth to the petals’), imagines a ceremony of physical, emotional and spiritual abortions defined by interdependencies and pleasure. Informed by a study of pre-Hispanic textiles and ceramics archives, the project articulates an understanding of abortion as part of a collective and more-than-human fertility cycle.

The project comes as a response to how the right to abortion is defined by neoliberalism, confining it to the private space and under the notion of self determination, violently creating an idea of the individual as isolated. By calling for a reframe, Parir los pétalos proposes a narrative that portrays abortion from the perspective of our dependencies, thinking of care and pleasure as essential aspects to it, while criticizing obstetric violence.

The research starting point is a 100 – 300 C.E. funerary mantle from the Nasca culture of today’s coastal Peru. It is titled “The Paracas Textile", and stored at the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. The mantle depicts a harvesting ceremony, showing iconography that relates to fertility. Four figures hold what seems to be Salvia Officinalis, an herb used to regulate the menstrual cycle. Another character, identified as a woman due to her garment, carries an unrecognized plant. The frogs accompany the procession, emblems of fertility. Nasca ceramic vestiges show female genitals with enlarged clitoris and vases used to collect menstruation. As a result of imagining abortion through these archives' representations, this project portrays tools, long-distance prostheses, and vestiges of aborted embryos as a significant part of the reproductive cycle. It asks about past practices, challenging our understanding of history by highlighting erasures and voids in colonial and patriarchal narratives.