The Vivid Ex Voto: Divine Healing, Publicness, and Self-Health-Expression

Abstract

The ex voto—a material donation as a response to a divine miracle of intervention to a private health concern—negotiates the relationship between self-expression and public awareness. Drawing on the example of the (now demolished) Church of Sants Gervasi i Protasi in Barcelona, this text explores the use of the ex voto as a physical artifact that produces a shared narrative. A reflection on the ex voto as a commemorative practice can speak to the past as well as to the present, where contemporary public expressions of health-gratitude or health-awareness go beyond the divine, the shrine and their adjacencies.