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| Victoria Rance 12,000 Grandmothers 2024 ink on paper 40x50cm |
It is estimated that we have 12,000 maternal grandmothers taking us back to the first Homo sapiens. I made a baby from an old woollen blanket with 12,000 stitches on it, one for each generation. In this tableau her imagined grandmothers surround her. A ritual performance is projected behind her, like a vision of an ancestor warning us on the one hand, and comforting the baby with a lullaby on the other. How many generations, how many grandmothers do we have ahead of us?
I look back to the art and life of my grandmothers, and a time when they were the most respected among us. Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, who discovered Old Europe, a civilization which flourished 8,000 years ago, responded to the excavation of Çatalhöyük in Southern Anatolia. This settlement existed from 9,000 years ago and lasted for 2,000 years, and some extraordinarily powerful female figurines were found there in the 1960s, but few male ones. She put forward the idea that this was a long standing and peaceful matrilineal society, until an invasion from a patriarchal warrior culture. The idea of a martriachy was later disputed, and respect for Gimbutas was undermined. It is now recovering years after her death (in 1994) as excavations continue, genetic studies prove her theories, and her method of examining what folklore has retained gains traction.
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| Victoria Rance Bucranium 2024 pewter |
The idea of a matriarchal society as the foundation of human society, with goddesses worshipped rather than gods, has waxed and waned according to the what is happening in contemporary mainstream culture. I first read about the theory of an initial matriarchy in a book by sculptor and writer Kate Millett when I was living in Mexico in 1984 when feminism was mainstream. Gimbutas and her theories were embraced by many feminist groups. During the 1990s there was a backlash against feminism, feminist leaders, and theories of matrilineal societies. But now they are being revisited.
My interest is in what we choose to take with us from the past, our ancestresses and grandmothers, and what we then pass on to our daughters. It gives me a sense of continuity that the egg that made me was made inside my grandmother. And the egg that made my daughter was made inside my mother. But there are challenges to our important and comforting sense of continuity. Climate change interrupts and threatens our ability to imagine a secure future for our grandchildren. Some young people decide not to have children with this as a factor. Infertility caused by environmental factors is rising too.
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| Victoria Rance 12,000 Grandmothers with Cole Pemberton 2024 |
The project began with making a film with my son Cole Pemberton of a ritual performance involving a dress I made based on one which my mother wore on her 60th birthday, and I wore after her death, on my 40th birthday. The dress is empowering. It refers to the bucranium, the bulls head, a symbol which was used to decorate the houses and possibly sacred rooms at Çatalhöyük for centuries. Bull running, leaping and fighting, which also took place in ancient Crete and Greece, remain in the culture in Southern France and Spain. Gimbutas believed that the bull was sacred to the goddess of death and regeneration. And also that its head, the Bucranis, with which houses in Çatalhöyük were decorated, may refer to the female reproductive organs. The dress I have made has lightening too, a symbol of regeneration and power, possibly how life began on planet earth.
Homo sapiens has been in existence for the time of 12,000 grandmothers. How much longer do we have? How can we use the wisdom, peacefulness and stability of the matrilineal societies, to adapt to the challenges we face and ensure our children and their children can continue to hold a sense of a viable future?
