The photographer Marta Mas presents until July 31 To Live or the Stigma of Reason at the H2O Gallery in Barcelona (Verdi Street, 152). This is a deeply personal project that takes as its starting point the diaries of her grandmother, diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression, to reflect on emotional inheritance, structural malaise, and the need to find spaces from which to resist and live.
The artist has selected fragments from the diaries and underlined the essential ideas so that visitors can follow the reading more easily. Alongside these texts are Mas's analog photographs that portray scenes of everyday life, telling intimate moments and experiences.
Immersed in deep psychological suffering
Mas's grandmother was a woman from Gavà who, according to the photographer, lived in a time when women "could only be at home, be whores or nuns." A generation that, in Mas's words, remained trapped inside their homes to the point that many women ended up immersed in deep psychological suffering. For the artist, what her grandmother experienced is not just an individual story, but the reflection of a malaise shared by an entire generation. And therein lies the importance of being able to exhibit such personal texts, as many women will be able to identify with them.
"There is a malaise that is structural," defends Mas, who uses this family story to propose a broader view of the conditions that have marked the lives of many women. Her grandmother lived with schizophrenia and depression, but the nuclear family prevented her from being admitted. "They wanted to admit my grandmother, but the nuclear family did not allow it," she recalls. According to her, this meant that she always maintained contact with reality and that her relatives did not have the feeling that she had completely lost awareness of what she was experiencing. And here also lies the key to everything: the family and how it can be a very important pillar to sustain this type of situation.
On whether she is not afraid to expose her grandmother's intimacy: she responds forcefully: "It is the story of many women, and they will see themselves reflected in some way in my grandmother's harsh words." A fact that she explains she was already able to experience in 2020 when she published El principio de Arquímedes, where she spoke of a breakup and her personal grief, but far from that, readers found their own personal story in it, and not Mas's.
A unique and shared vital process
The exhibition also talks about Mas's own vital process. The artist explains that the project was born from a stage marked by "galloping anxiety" since she was very young, fueled, in part, by the fear of ending up developing a situation similar to that of her grandmother.
The exhibition explores the relationship between generational inheritance and the fear of ending up like her grandmother and the fear of dying. Or, rather, of not having lived enough. Faced with this unease, Mas places photography as a tool capable of building refuges. With images that show us different spaces of intimacy with simple moments of everyday life that Mas has converted into her antidote against this discomfort.
Living in the present: the solution
The artist assures that her own personal process has consisted precisely of focusing on "the here and now." This way of looking at the present, she explains, has allowed her to reduce anxiety and find a way to reconcile with daily life. The photographs thus capture these seemingly insignificant moments, but which acquire great strength when shared with the people she loves most.
Mas explains that "the weight of simple gestures, those of the community and the people we love, combat isolation and finally reunite us with life." This idea runs through the entire project and turns the images into a vindication of small spaces of care and affection as forms of resistance against suffering.
The "most beautiful gallery in Barcelona"
Mas considers Galeria H2O "the most beautiful in Barcelona," an ideal setting to host this proposal in which photography dialogues with her grandmother's intimate writings. This gallery opened in October 1989 with an exhibition of architectural project drawings by the young Dutch architect Ben van Berkel. In 1995, it launched the editorial project of the collection Les Idiotes, dedicated to the publication of literary texts. Currently, it programs exhibitions of architecture, design, photography, and contemporary art.
Marta Mas: photography and philosophy
Marta Mas Girones (Begues, Barcelona, 1995) is a photographer specializing in portraiture and trained in Philosophy. Her work focuses on exploring the intimacy and authenticity of the people who stand before her camera. Her projects include her first book, El principio de Arquímedes (Penguin Random House, 2021), the image of the Teatre Lliure (2024–2027 seasons), collaborations with media such as Forbes and El País Semanal, and the creation of the portrait set for the award winners of the 40th edition of the Goya Awards (2026).
