We talk a lot about motherhood.
But not enough about the versions of it that don’t fit the narrative — the ones that begin with hope and end in silence.
5=3 is a project about that silence. And what happens when we give it form.
It began with a single ceramic shard.
A green, triangular fragment, hand-cut and glazed, etched with a strange, almost nonsensical equation: 5 = 3
Below it, my initials — AM.
It looks like a mistake. That’s the point.
Because losing a child during pregnancy feels like a glitch in logic, in nature, in your body.
The numbers don’t add up. But the pain is real.
A Personal Equation
The phrase 5 = 3 came to me while trying to explain something I never wanted to explain. How five pregnancies led to only three children. How the world saw me as a mother of three, while I carried two invisible stories inside me.
How math, which should be clear and clean, became messy with memory, heartbreak, and biology. So I carved it. In clay. And then I left it behind. That’s how the social project 5=3 began — not in a gallery, but in a park in Tel Aviv. A ceramic plaque, placed quietly in a public space
No plaque explaining it. No explanation needed. Just the equation. And the reactions came quickly: confusion, curiosity, recognition.
People stopped. People stared. People scanned the QR code engraved on the reverse side, which led to a simple website: https://5equals3.org/
A place where women could anonymously share their stories of pregnancy loss. And they did. Some just typed “Me too.” Others shared intimate reflections that had never been spoken aloud. Many cried.
Ceramics as Witness
There’s a reason I chose ceramics for this project. Clay is ancient. It remembers shape. It records pressure. It breaks. But it can also be fired, glazed, and made to endure. Like grief, it hardens into something else over time — but the original imprint is always there.
Each shard in this series is unique. Cut by hand. Glazed by hand. Etched by hand. I leave them a little raw, a little jagged, like the emotion they represent. They’re not delicate. But they are vulnerable.
Why This Project Matters
Pregnancy loss affects millions of people — and yet we rarely speak about it openly. There’s no ritual. No language. No roadmap for how to support someone — or be supported. Women often feel ashamed, isolated, or dismissed.
Even those surrounded by love carry a private grief, buried beneath phrases like “It wasn’t meant to be,” or “At least it was early.” 5=3 doesn’t offer answers. It doesn’t try to fix anything.
It simply says: I see you. You’re not broken. You’re not alone. And your story matters.
