Úter [ES][ENG]
by Júlia Peña

19th - 21th September
C/ dels Codols, 16 08002 Barcelona

Of that origin, there are no words, no encoded memory. At most, a child daydreams in front of me: “It was warm, humid, dark... but not completely.” What remains is the body’s memory, which has stored fragments of that stay, curling into the fetal position when something goes wrong.

The womb, a common veil and point of no return, appears differently in each case. There are stirred wombs, wombs drawn inward to hold the creature in, and divine wombs, serene like the Mediterranean — a sea made for children. So then, what if the way we experienced the womb determines how we later experience life?

The only universal aspect of intrauterine life is surrender: no one comes into being without another body. And yet, it is precisely a separation that throws us into the world. Life begins with that cut. The navel appears and so does the question; Could it be, that this scar is a predisposition to disconnection? From that moment on, what shaped us — vulnerability and dependence — seems to be pushed aside, almost demonized.

Perhaps all existence is nothing but an attempt to cope with that loss, to endure the exile.
Maybe the longing to be entered again is an effort to reattach the umbilical cord. To be connected once more to another body. Perhaps everything we seek comes from the same drive toward regression. Maybe what gives life a meaning is not what we remember, but what we sense.

Úter is an invitation to explore your own uterine experience. Use it as a channel. Enter barefoot, and feel what you do not remember.

Text by Natalia Risueño