My World, My Dreams

It is quite obvious that the world in which we live is dominated by masculine culture, no matter how successful feminism has been in spreading globally as an ideology, attitude and trend. Still, the post-communist societies of Central Eastern Europe seem much more phallocentric than the once so-called developed societies of the West.

During the 90s, female (and male) artists focused on the body, from the perspective of the construction of femininity and masculinity in artworks. The first openly feminist art concerned with gender difference emerged during this period, as the new social-political condition demanded a critique towards the conventional model of women as Mothers and/or Housewives kept in domesticity. This went hand in hand with the romanticization of women’s place in the family.

But the steady relegation of women into Protectors of Home was not simply a nationalist goal; women indeed had to stay at home for a practical reason, mainly because during the period of economic transition, many of them became unemployed. Therefore, the issue of domesticity runs in many women artists’ oeuvre as politicizing women’s role in the private sphere. (Piotrowski)

Thirty years after the fall of the iron curtain and ten years after the major survey entitled ‘Gender Check’ this exhibition aims to emphasize the tragic situation regarding the growing impact of hard-core neoconservatisivm in Eastern Central Europe, highlighting and limiting women’s role to the household, and pushing them back to the private sphere. While the rising nationalism values women for their fertility, and puts them on pedestal as nurturers of the nation’s next generation.