Lights Years is Catarina Gonçalves’ first solo exhibition, winner of the Young Creators W&T 2020, which investigates motherhood, domestic space, and the place of the body.

Over the course of several months, Gonçalves met with four women who have as a common element the fact that they have chosen to be full-time mothers. Through interviews and testimonies, Gonçalves creates a cinematographic device where Paula Nemeth, Freda Barrera Fitch, Corie Jason, and Marianna Sebestyén share different perspectives on motherhood, the home, and the domestic space, which can be seen as both a place of empowerment and imprisonment for women.

In patriarchal social structures, regardless of what a woman decides to do with her body – choosing to be a mother or not, always involves some kind of sacrifice and judgment, be it social, cultural, or professional. These four women end up representing these multiple stories and people as they share the difficulties of motherhood, and what is prioritized and renounced throughout this process. They constitute honest testimonials about love and discomfort, freedom and closure – from birth to adulthood. They underline how caring and educating are duties that entail work (domestic and secondary), even if these tasks are devalued as such, within and beyond the domestic sphere. These voices become a representation of different kinds of being a mother, reminding us that motherhood is not an attitude that develops naturally, but a conscious decision that changes people's lives forever.

Composed of 4 channels, Light years invites the audience to enter a uterine space, a time-capsule that takes them back to a starting point of discovery, fear, and fascination, made of atemporal connections and interdependent relationships that exist beyond time, being reconfigured faster and beyond the speed of light.


Credits
Directing, cinematography, editing - Catarina Gonçalves
With Paula Nemeth, Freda Barrera Fitch, Corie Jason, and Marianna Sebestyén
Sound capture - Clara Baj, Montserrat Mayte Mancilla Arenales and João Borsani
Sound editing - Bernardo Bourbon
Voice over recording - Tamás Bohács
Translation and subtitles- Gonçalo Bradford, João Gonçalves, Juan Gonçalves and Zsófi Anna Elek
Commissioned by Walk&Talk - Arts Festival 2022