Open for business: Posters from the exhibition ‘Neighbours’ to advertise the reopening of The Vagina Museum
(Picture: The Vagina Museum)It’s the museum you never knew you needed – and it’s back.
After a six-month break, The Vagina Museum is reopening its doors to the general public in Bethnal Green– something director and founder Florence Schechter said she was “thrilled” about.
The museum, which started as a series of pop-ups events in 2017, opened its doors to the public first the first time in 2019 with permanent premises in Camden Market.
During its two years in Camden, it welcomed 150,000 people, before going public in its quest to find a new site.
As the world’s first bricks-and-mortar museum dedicated to vaginas, vulvas and the female anatomy, it will be reopening alongside a local OOH campaign called ‘Neighbours’, which will comprise 16 posters designed by artist and designer Mirjami Qin.
As you might expect, the posters will pay tribute to all things vulval, with some exploring the difference between the museum and other local establishments, and some celebrating the female anatomy directly.
The pro bono campaign will run in East London from March 3rd, in static and digital OOH formats – and the posters will be available to buy on the museum’s website, with all proceeds going back to the museum.
This isn’t the first time the museum has made a statement through its artwork: the museum’s ‘Open Soon’ campaign raised almost £20,000 during the height of the pandemic thanks to an auction of vulva-based artwork.
And if you’re finding this an unwelcome topic, then the problem might not be the museum.
“Half the world has a vulva, a vagina and a clitoris - it should be normal to use these words in our everyday vernacular and be comfortable seeing them mentioned on billboards,” Creative Director Nathalie Gordon says.
“If anyone finds the campaign sensationalist, inappropriate or weird - it says more about them than it does the work or the museum.”
Senior creatives Amy Fasey and Jacob Hellström agreed.
“It’s been a pleasure to create some eye-catching vag-tastic work for the Vagina Museum again,” they said.
“Not only are they a bunch of wonderful people, driving incredible change - they repeatedly push the boundaries of the spaces they are in - allowing bravery in work that we rarely see.
“Hopefully having vaginas (and words like clit and vulva) in the public realm will help tackle the stigma surrounding gynaecological anatomy as a whole, as well as continue the museum’s mission of spreading knowledge, empowering womxn, and raising awareness of public health.”
