Caesarean scars and pregnancy marks form a bodily cartography that is systematically erased from contemporary iconography. These maternal imprints, paradoxically absent from media representations, nevertheless inscribe in the flesh narratives of metamorphosis, resilience and transmission.
As a visual artist, photographer and mother of four, I have developed a creative protocol that subverts documentary representation. The process transfigures the very materiality of the image: I embroider onto photographic supports which I then re-photograph, turning scars into precious traceries of golden thread — an echo of the Japanese Kintsugi, where repair sublimates the broken object.
This textile practice, a matrilineal inheritance, becomes a performative act of symbolic repair. It transmutes bodily stigmata into meaningful aesthetic elements. Each embroidery stitch re-inscribes these bodies within a new system of values that celebrates their singularity and their generative power.
By making these bodily transcriptions tangible, this work questions the politics of visibility of the maternal body and deconstructs dominant aesthetic hierarchies. The scars, now ornaments, become the precious vestiges of a fundamental transformation, inviting us to reconsider female corporeality beyond normative representations.