There is no more universal figure. And yet, none is more laden with expectations. Motherhood unfolds at the Mucem in all its Mediterranean complexity. Four millennia of images, stories, cults, and struggles intertwine in a sweeping exhibition that rejects the reassuring vision of the eternal “good mother.” From ancient mother goddesses to Virgins and Child, from the Marseilles Virgin Mary to patriotic figures, the exhibition shows us how motherhood has been shaped, sacralized, and instrumentalized.

Ancient terracotta, icons, Renaissance masterpieces, contemporary installations: the works engage in dialogue without hierarchy. Botticelli rubs shoulders with Niki de Saint Phalle. Pierre et Gilles encounters Fatima Mazmouz. Joana Vasconcelos sets a monumental heart beating. The entrance is sunlit, almost enveloping. We traverse idealized imaginaries: fertility, protection, selflessness. Then the narrative cracks. Realities emerge – perinatal grief, pregnancy termination, loneliness, invisible fatigue. Motherhood ceases to be a myth and becomes an experience once more.

Throughout the 350 works gathered, the mother tells her story differently; she works as if she had no children, raises her children as if she had no job. The wall of Mediterranean proverbs, humorous and biting, reveals how this figure is both intimate and political. The scenography, immersive without being spectacular, invites us to move between past and present, myth and reality, sacred and everyday. Motherhood then appears as a shifting social construct, traversed by contradictory expectations.It can be refuge, constraint, power, transmission. It can be chosen, prevented, transformed. And ultimately, it's obvious: the "good mother" doesn't exist. There are only mothers, in the plural.

MUCEM
Until August 31, 2026
1 esp. J4, 13002 Marseille