From the feminist avant-garde to the present day, the collective exhibition "Acts of Creation: About Art and Motherhood", curated by Hettie Judah, seeks to communicate the lived experience of motherhood in all its complexity, from the joys, dedication and loss, to its myths and mishaps.

Organised by the Hayward Gallery, in London, the exhibition is on display at the Arnolfini International Center for Contemporary Art, in Bristol, where it will remain until May 26th, then moves to the Midlands Arts Center (MAC), in Birmingham, from June 22nd until the 29th from September, then to the Millennium Gallery, in Sheffield, from October 24th until January 19th, 2025, and, finally, to the Center for Contemporary Art in Dundee, Scotland, in the spring of that year.

In addition to works by Paula Rego from the 1990s, the exhibition features works by artists such as Felicity Allen, Janine Antoni, Cassie Arnold, Bobby Baker, Elina Brotherus, Liesel Burisch, Cathy Cade, Lea Cetera, Jai Chuhan, Eileen Cooper, Renee Cox, Dorothy Cross, Rineke Dijkstra, Natalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Leni Dothan and Marlene Dumas, totaling around 60, from the modern to contemporary period.

Paula Rego's representation in this exhibition involves works dedicated to the theme of clandestine abortion that she developed in a series of pastel and etching paintings in 1999. With this series, the artist contested the high level of abstention recorded in Portugal during the first referendum on the decriminalisation of abortion, the previous year.