Breaking the Maternal Bronze Figure: Vera Omodeo Dal latte materno veniamo

Veronica Frigenia, PhD
Visiting Researcher, Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies (ZtG), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.   

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Abstract

This article examines the contested politics of maternal representation in contemporary Italy by analyzing Dal latte materno veniamo (From Mother’s Milk We Come), a bronze sculpture by Italian artist Vera Omodeo. The study explores how public monuments function as ideological sites where meanings of motherhood, femininity, and citizenship are negotiated. Drawing on feminist theory, urban cultural studies, visual culture, and Rancière’s concept of the distribution of the sensible, the article investigates the institutional controversies surrounding the sculpture, from its rejection by the Municipality of Milan to its subsequent appropriation within the Italian Senate and eventual installation in public space. It argues that the monument exposes the tensions between patriarchal and feminist constructions of motherhood and illustrates how maternal embodiment is alternately celebrated and politically instrumentalized. Omodeo’s work does not reproduce a singular narrative of maternity and produces an ambivalent position. The statue thus becomes a site of dissensus that challenges conventional monumentality and expands debates on visibility, care, embodiment, and public memory. Ultimately, the article contends that maternal monuments should be understood as dynamic arenas, where competing visions of gender, citizenship, and historical recognition are contested.

Keywords: Dal latte materno veniamo, motherhood, maternal embodiment, public monument, public art, Italy, Vera Omodeo, gender politics, symbolic representation, sociopolitical debate.