A la manera de les danaides

The woman carrying the shopping cart is a reinterpretation that Isabel Banal made on the traditional figures of the Nativity scene. This figure speaks to us of one of the basic needs of human beings, nourishment, and how it has generally been the women who, day by day and patiently, have been in charge of providing food to other people, taking care of the whole family.

The cart of each one of the figures is painted – just as the figuraires and the “saint factories” do – following a real model, that of some women found in the market of Olot. Isabel Banal asked each woman her name and asked permission to photograph her cart to reproduce it faithfully. The name “danaides” refers to the representation of a classical myth: women with a basket in their hands with which they have to collect water, something impossible to do with this container. Image of repetition and infinity.

Plaster and gouache