Rachel Basok

I as a Container

pregnancy and giving birth, a graduation project

During my studies I gave birth twice, and thus I was drawn to that theme. Motherhood came with great complexity and uneasy challenges for me, and I was torn between my strong desire to become a devoted mom and the many tasks related to my studies.

In this project, I focus on the domain between the place of the object and the vanishing subject. Being a mother is for me a kind of relinquishment of myself, of my most basic needs as an individual. I am wholly engrossed in the needs of my offspring, becoming an object for them and providing all their needs in total devotion.

As it is for any mother who gives birth, her body is drastically transformed, and her self-image is compromised. It is difficult for any woman to admit these changes, let alone discuss them publicly, and so at the start of my work I tried to conceal and glamorize those aspects and to stress the beautiful side of this process; I refrained initially from articulating materially this complex and highly personal subject, but gradually I dared more to express and display the hardships of pregnancy and birth.

“And I still don’t know

what to tell my son:

That I am his mother

or that I am

me”

 translated from Efrat Mishori’s poem

Materials and technique: porcelain on potter’s wheel, hand sculpture and carving.

Dimensions: height – 10-90 cm, width – 8-70 cm.