argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Paula Bonet. Painter and writer
"It is essential to know that motherhood is not an unnegotiable goal"
  • After studying fine arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Paula Bonet (Villarreal, Valencia, 1980) continued her higher education in Santiago de Chile, New York (USA) and Urbino (Italy). In March he published his latest work: Anguilla (Anguilla).
Saioa Baleztena @Saioabaleztena 2021eko apirilaren 14a
“Arte oro posizionatzen da. Baita bere iritzia ematen ez duena ere, tokirik koldarrenetik”.
“Arte oro posizionatzen da. Baita bere iritzia ematen ez duena ere, tokirik koldarrenetik”. (Argazkia: Jordi Borràs)

When and how did you decide to live
from art?Despite the reflection that raised me many doubts before deciding, I feel somehow that I was clear from the beginning. There was no other alternative… He

says that all the arts are born from the same place to meet the same goal. What are you looking for between you?
Understand me, no doubt.

Doubts, why?
Because at home art was not considered a trade, it was incompatible with “earning life seriously.” I was a good student and my mother wanted to do “profit” studies, you know, Medicine, Architecture or Law… What place did art have in

your life when I was little?
It was fundamental, I would say, that they occupied an important place, almost in their entirety. Reading and drawings were everyday exercises. That's right, on weekends, I was taking more juice. I remember using reading when I was there where I wasn't interested, and painting and drawings made me feel saturated.

Three years ago, he published Roedoras. Embryo Free Body (Rodents. Body of the pregnant woman without embryos). A book that breaks taboos through your personal experience and gets rid of a miscarriage. To begin with, I wanted to question motherhood and our relationship with the body, which is the field of a struggle that
has nothing to do with us and that pushes us into a concrete and very limited place. On the other hand, as an author, I wanted to dare to publish a text that did not need images to exist.

He says that you created that job for all the women who have suffered in solitude experiences similar to you. To what extent is it important to make visible the reality of motherhood?
As a woman, it is essential to know that motherhood is not an unnegotiable goal. To be clear about this is fundamental.

Do you think motherhood is a social imposition? Why?
Yes, I think it is. Chilean Diamela Eltit explains this perfectly. He says in his book Against Children (Children versus Children) that the trap of questions we hear since we are young leaves us with little room for movement: “How many children do you want to have?” And that is, through this question our brain directly rejects the possibility of not having children. Later on, we feel and see how society looks at the fear and grief with the face of women who are not mothers, as if they were women with mistakes.

Photo: Jordi Borràs

Abortion is so forgotten that, unlike other losses, there are no words to describe the mother of the lost child.
If I am not mistaken, Rebecca Solnite says that the patriarchate does not act with awkwardness, but with bad intent. Behind the absence of that word there is a clear perverse intention.

You have clearly spoken of violations beyond abortion. Last October you made public the attack suffered for a year. How are you? I
cannot speak publicly of the fact because the lawsuit is open and the trial is pending. But I can say I'm relieved. I would like to publicly thank lawyer Carla Vall for making this possible. And I can also say how important it is to have a gender-sensitive defense, because without it this issue was going to be a lost issue from the very beginning.

He's punished for talking about intimate things. To what extent is it important that artists, sportsmen and other public figures give an opinion on these issues?
All art is positioned. What is more, even the one who does not give his opinion, from the most colossal place.

In March he saw the light of the novel La anguilla. What will we find in it? A
letter of love written to a man. And a woman's body was beaten and raped, but also appreciated.

The eel will also be present in the Nau room of the University of Valencia. What does it consist of? Painting
is an exhibition that deals with the same theme of the novel from the most abstract plastic. From the deepest dark, the most painful malformation, to the white that disappears on the wall of the room, is 184 pieces.

When and how does the project come about?
I've worked for two and a half years. But thirst and rodents. The body of a pregnant woman without an embryo had already started beating. If the latter was a blow on the table, it is a reflection after the coup of La Anguilla.

Do you have another project in your hands?
I'm working on editing the travel notebooks that I made between 2018 and 2020, as simple as traveling before the order of arrival to the adjacent supermarket. On the other hand, I've begun to structure what will be my second novel.

In the female
world “For me, all the arts are born from the same place, I don’t understand one without the other, and if they have any purpose it is the same: writing, for example, offers me the same thing as recording paintings in what strength. The designation of the world as a woman is one of the most important goals of my work. I find it irnegotiable.”