The exhibition series — focused on the sculpture, originally recumbent of the Virgin, popularly known as La Geperudeta or La Mareta— try to show, from an interdisciplinary approach, the cultural history of this icon throughout their almost six-hundred years of life: since the creation of the medieval brotherhood linked to the psychiatric hospital enclosure (the first known in Europe) and since the times when the legend of the image creation by angels was spread (in the XVII century) to our media-oriented, network society, governed by the Internet.

Throughout these centuries Our Lady of the Forsaken could preserve her nature as icon of the underclass: wretched, sick, poor, helpless people. For this reason exhibitions insist on the popular dimension of the worship to La Geperudeta, a social reality lived from catholic customs but  — and perhaps this is the most surprising fact— equally felt by people whose ideas would be initially away from Church hierarchy or even by those who declare themselves unconnected to Christian faith —particularly— or to religious practice in general.

That way is how la Mareta had represented —and still represents nowadays— a soulful and emotional experience for so many people from Valencia.  

The exhibition series consists of three tours:

• The first one - FROM THE SUBURBS TO THE CENTRE- explains geographic migration of the icon within the urban scene, moved from the periphery- to the south of gothic walls- to the symbolic core of the city, near the Archibishop’s Palace, the Cathedral and the old City Council.

• The second one – FROM THE CENTRE TO THE TOP- analyses the change in the status and recognition of the figure which, promoted by the proper authorities of Catholic Church, reflected the social importance of this devotion in a historical background where civil and political life was greatly imbued with religion.

• The third one – THE MULTIPLIED IMAGE – focuses on the persistence and widespread media appearance of la Mare de Déu dels Desemparats (Our Lady of the Forsaken) in the popular and current devotion and culture, specially through kitsch art and religious merchandising.