Making Women´s History Visible in Europe

A European Learning Partnership (Grundtvig 2)

Maria: A Chest
I went to the Benaki Museum and the item that caught my attention was a chest.

There are several reasons for this: it is a female icon, it keeps its contents hidden, it is the site for hope and dreams, it is the recipient of family history, it speaks of travels, of weddings, of deaths… and my favourite grandmother left me hers when she died in 1973.

Women used to have their own chest to fill with the treasures of their life and with the linen they embroidered as their dowry. When they married they took their chest with them, and when their children were small they were shown that world of wonders, if they behaved.

Women to-be-migrants collected their past in the chest and moved to the new country to merge with the new life. Only from time to time they indulged in their saudade and opened up their past. Usually it was the grandchildren who had the privilege of attending such ceremony.

While the chest was closed it was the site of all possibilities and all probabilities, the origin of literature, of stories and of tall-tales. When the chest was opened every item had a history and constituted a thread to weave the familial genealogy.

What can be more exciting than a chest in the family? Or in a museum?

María Suárez Lafuente, Spain

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