Religious institutions have manipulated historical figures and spiritualities in order to inflict control and violence. Since the XVIII century until 1996 in the context of Ireland the Catholic Church maintained open and working the institutions kwon as Magdalene Laundries. These institutions were intended to house so-called “fallen women” such as single mothers, sex workers, and young girls who had been abused, but effectively imprisoned them, forcing their labor, isolating them from their communities and even separating them from their children. This policy of violence towards women have continued in the context of Europe, now inflicted through institutional racism towards migrant mothers who are controlled by the Social Services and separated from their children using racist, classists and patriarchal laws.

The series of banners vindicate religious figures such as Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary as what they were; a sex worker and a single mother, reconciling christian spirituality with the reality of those women who have been historically persecuted and abused by power, as well as creating a series of images that create a braided narrative between the experience of Irish women held in the Magdalene Laundries and migrant mother under the violence of contemporary institutional racism.

The banners where first presented in Sirius Arte Center in the city of Cork, Ireland.

2021 · Oil painting canvas over fabric. 4 banners. 200cm x 400cm (approximate measurements for each piece)