- Source: Vaginamuseum
- Source: Vagina Museum
The virtual Vaginamuseum is an international internet project, founded by the Austrian artist, Kerstin Rajnar, in 2014. It consists in a virtual gallery and a virtual archive containing background information about the female sex and femininity. Various representations of female sexual organs indicate the existence of a female role model in social systems and allow conclusions to be drawn as to the importance of women in different environments. This project aims at promoting the artistic creation and debate about the female sex. It supports the positive meanings and appreciation of the words and body parts such as the vagina, vulva, and clitoris. The museum is considered the first to be devoted to the vagina.
About
The Vaginamuseum communicates informations and is an educational platform. Experts of art history, health care, medical science, as well as artists of all disciplines, are creating this platform. The archive displays conceptual and historical texts and other articles and contributions about the vagina, the vulva and the clitoris. The curated gallery shows selected artworks which stimulate new thinking about the female genital and lead to new perspectives. Rajnar's vision is that the museum can help improve people's negative attitudes about the vagina which are shaped through culture and media.
The Vaginamuseum elaborated concepts on the topic: Art and Culture and Life and Limb _ the positive Power of Feminity.
Vaginamuseum is registered at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
Exhibitions in the gallery
= Vagina 2.0
=The virtual opening exhibition curated by the media artist and curator Doris Jauk-Hinz broaches the issue of current terms and subjective meanings of the female sexual organs. Reflections in dealing with the term vagina are based on ideas, expectations, attributions, associations and emotions by means of art. The artistic inputs range from earlier depictions of vulva symbols in different civilizations and times to the life and work on social media platforms and sex-positive feminism in cyberspace.
Artists (alphabetical order): Collective AMAE (GB), Teresa Ascencao (CA), Mattia Biagi (US), Iwona Demko (PL), Collective Freudenweide & Villefort (AT), Faith Holland (US), Barbara Klampfl / Gisela Reimer (AT), Petra Mattheis (DE), Sofia Ntontis (AT), Angela Proyer (AT), Melinda Rackham (AU), Rosa Roedelius (AT), Grit Scholz (DE), Ulla Sladek (AT), Christina Strasser (AT), Myriam Thyes (DE), Dorothée Zombronner (DE)
= Geburt_to animate
=The second exhibition is an exploration of the “inner“ functional female body as a point of reception and a place where new life is born – a cultural place of origin. The artistic contributions address natural and artificial processes that create life within a cultural dynamic. They depict desires for the composition of “creation“ and range from the metaphoric realization in artistic processes to the “self-design“ of life. Articles on the topic of birth complete the exhibition.
Artists (alphabetical order): Zara Alexandrova (DE), Teresa Ascencao (CA), Rachelle Beaudoin (US), Yvonne Beelen (NL), Ada Kobusiewicz (AT/POL), Renate Kordon (AT), Bernhard Krähenmann (CH), Gertrude Moser-Wagner (AT), Boryana Rossa (US), Barbara Schmid / Ulla Sladek (AT), Maja Smekar (SI)
Contributions in the archive
= Art history
=This contribution was developed by the art historian Sara Buchbauer. It gives an overview of the depiction of the female sex starting from the European Paleolithic up to present day art. The texts about different periods serve as an introduction to offer information on the political and cultural events of the time, on the women's role and stylistic characteristics relating to art. Around 100 art works of particular periods were chosen to exemplify particular times. They illustrate the style of the period and serve as documents for particular stages of development.
= Vaginalogy
=This contribution was developed by the physician Jana Studnicka. It offers insights into the topics of woman, body, sexuality and society. Not only medical, but also social and psychological aspects of femininity are discussed. The content changes between gender identity, sexual orientation, external and internal female sexual organs, contraception, reproduction, menstruation, sexual medicine, violence against women, etc. This contribution reflects the current state of research as well as different perspectives on various issues and problem areas. It clarifies present thought patterns and presents the latest scientific insights.
The newly created term Vaginalogy doesn't yet exist in the general language and consists of the word Vagina and the suffix -logy. The idea was to set a counterpoint to the medical term gynecology. Because gynecology is primarily concerned with the teaching of the diseases of the female body.
Press
In 2014, the Jetzt-Magazin of the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an interview with Kerstin Rajnar and with Hjortur Gisli Sigurdsson, director of the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavík. In the interview Rajnar reported that the Vaginamuseum had been heavily criticized even before the opening, also because of state funding.
Stephanie Johne wrote on the website Refinery29: "Gender paradigms must be questioned critically and overcome once and for all. The virtual Vaginamuseum makes a crucial contribution to a more positive perception of the female sex, to such a degree as art contributes to its acceptance on a broader level. This is why its online presence determines its offline presence at the end of the day!"
Financing
The bilingual Vaginamuseum, translated by Christine Wilhelm is supported by the art department of the Austrian government, the Cultural Department of Styria, the Department for Women, anti-discrimination and equal treatment of Burgenland and by the cities of Vienna and Graz.
See also
Vagina and vulva in art
Culture and menstruation
References
External links
Official site
The Vagina Museum is the world's first brick and mortar museum about the female reproductive system. The project is based in the United Kingdom, and moved into its first fixed location in Camden Market, London, in October 2019. Its first exhibition opened on 16 November 2019. It moved to its second premises in Bethnal Green on 19 March 2022 and was open to the public until Wednesday, 1 February 2023. It reopened in its next long-term home in two railway arches in Bethnal Green on 4 November 2023.
Description
The Vagina Museum was founded in response to a lack of gynaecological representation within the culture and heritage sector throughout the world. The museum usually hosts two temporary exhibitions per year which explore a multitude of topics surrounding gynaecological health, social history, activism and discourse, as well as an events programme of talks, workshops, comedy, theatre and performance art.
History
The project to create the Vagina Museum was launched when the founder, Florence Schechter, discovered there was a penis museum in Iceland, the Icelandic Phallological Museum, but there was no equivalent for the vagina or vulva.
= 2017–2018: Pop up phase
=The museum's first event, a comedy fundraiser, was held on 19 May 2017 headlined by Hayley Ellis. It has run a number of events since, including participating in a residency with The Mothership Group called Superculture. Events as part of this residency have included a talk on "Vulvanomics" by Emma L. E. Rees, author of The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History, and a screening of the 2007 film Teeth (see vagina dentata) followed by a Q&A with Amanda DiGioia, the author of Childbirth and Parenting in Horror Texts: The Marginalized and the Monstrous and various comedy nights. They have also held events at Limmud Festival 2017 and the Royal Institution.
The museum held its first exhibition in August 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its second pop up exhibition was called "Is Your Vagina Normal?", and it travelled around the UK to Ancient House, Thetford, Brainchild Festival 2018, SQIFF 2018, and Museums Association Conference 2018.
In the 2017 Women of the Future Awards, Schechter was commended in the arts and culture category for her work with the Vagina Museum.
A permanent museum was proposed with exhibitions on gynaecological anatomy from science to art to culture, which was to be trans-inclusive.
= 2019: Camden Market premises
=On 21 March 2019, the Vagina Museum launched a crowdfunder to raise money to open a premises in Camden Market.
The project was supported by Camden Council, and leader of Camden Council Georgia Gould said:
Camden has a proud and radical history of challenging prejudice and orthodoxy, however, we acknowledge that the stigma associated with talking about gynaecological health has meant ignorance, confusion, shame, and poor medical care for too many. 65% of 16-to-25 year olds say they have a problem using the word vagina or vulva with almost half of 18-to-24 year old women say they are too embarrassed to talk about sexual health issues. We are therefore incredibly excited that the Vagina Museum is seeking to establish in Camden, and hope that it is funded to provide an inclusive and intersectional centre for learning, creativity, activism, and outreach that will add immeasurably to our collective understanding of our bodies.
The crowdfunder raised £48,945 and in October 2019, the museum moved into Camden Stables Market and began a programme of events. It opened its first exhibition, Muff Busters: vagina myths and how to fight them in November 2019. This exhibition was scheduled to end on 29 March 2020, but closed a few days earlier due to national lockdown restrictions in the UK. The next exhibition, Periods: A Brief History opened on 21 May 2021.
In August 2021, the museum announced that its landlord had decided not to extend its lease beyond September. The Camden Market site closed but the museum retained its online presence while it sought a new premises. On 22 February 2022, it announced a relocation to 18 Victoria Park Square in Bethnal Green and a scheduled reopening date of 19 March 2022.
= 2022–2023: Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green premises
=On 19 March, the Vagina Museum reopened at 18 Victoria Park Square in Bethnal Green. The museum opened with its exhibition Periods: A Brief History, along with a new permanent exhibition titled From A to V. Prior to the reopening, the museum was advertised on billboards in the vicinity with cheeky puns about other local businesses in the area.
The Vagina Museum closed its original Bethnal Green premises on 2 February 2023.
= 2023–present: Poyser Street, Bethnal Green premises
=Following a fundraising drive in 2023 raising over £85,000 in which over 2,500 people donated, the museum found new premises on Poyser Street, Bethnal Green. It signed a lease with The Arch Co for six years. The museum reopened in November 2023, initially on the ground floor only as lifts were not yet available. A range of temporary exhibitions are planned, with the first one about endometriosis. Its first exhibition in its temporary gallery, titled "Endometriosis: Into The Unknown" was created in collaboration with Oxford EndoCare, part of the Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health, and the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics based at the University of Oxford.
In 2024, the Vagina Museum opened two further galleries, a "community gallery" and a permanent exhibition gallery. In October 2024, to mark Black History Month, the Museum announced that the galleries would be named after the Mothers of Gynecology, Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey.
See also
Culture and menstruation
Icelandic Phallological Museum
List of sex museums
Vagina and vulva in art
Vulva activism
References
External links
Media related to Vagina Museum at Wikimedia Commons
Official website
Vagina Museum on Twitter
Vagina Museum on Instagram
Vagina Museum on Facebook
Vagina Museum Crowdfunder