Art Factory Gallery hosts "bloody-minded" exhibition

Prague's Art Factory Gallery is currently hosting an exhibition with a name that's certain to grab everyone's attention: "Tento mesic menstruuji" or "I'm Having My Period This Month".

Art Factory Gallery hosts "bloody-minded" exhibition

Photo: zpravodajstvi.ecn.cz

Part of the exhibition is a samizdat newsreel from the late 1980s, featuring an amateur video footage of a demonstration in the centre of Prague where women, mainly from the circles of the Charter 77 movement, protested against a shortage of sanitary pads which troubled Czechoslovakia at that time. Although a legitimate protest - it was nevertheless illegal and very risky for the demonstrators who merely demanded their right to human dignity.

These days there is nothing like a short supply of women's hygienic goods in this country, quite the reverse, but the topic of menstruation still remains somewhat of a taboo and if discussed at all, then usually only in clinical terms. And that's something the exhibition called "I'm Having My Period This Month" is trying to challenge.

I spoke to Alena Kralikova from Prague's Gender Studies centre which organised the exhibition.

Photo: feminismus.cz

"Actually the first idea came from the Gender Studies, from the group around the Gender Studies centre, simply to organise a very little happening that would deal in some way with sanitary pads and menstruation. And then we started to talk about it more and more and we found out that artists, both men and women, and people around the Gender Studies centre, were interested. So we actually organised this exhibition and simply asked all the people around, both amateurs and professionals to do anything regarding menstruation. The name of the exhibition literally translates as "I am Menstruating This Month". They were asked to simply do whatever. So this is an outcome of the whole idea."

Where did you take your inspiration from?

"It was a discussion with [sociologist] Jirina Siklova actually, at the very beginning. We spent one evening talking about how it was with menstruation under the communists, how it was when she was in prison. And it was so interesting for us, even to talk about the history, even further history, about our grandmothers and great-grandmothers. And we thought it was a topic we all wanted to talk about. That's why we simply did it."

What's the message the exhibition is trying to convey?

"It tries the break the taboos regarding a woman's body in a certain way but it's second point is also connected to the Gender Studies activities because we are still connected in a certain way to the academic or, let's say, political level of the gender discussion and we know that the general public doesn't know much about it; about what gender is, what equal opportunities are. And so we thought that this exhibition would bring the topic of gender issues closer to the people. So it's another way to talk to people and to get closer to them."

Could you describe some of the exhibits?

"Well, there are many photographs, but there are also statues, there are different objects - you can see menstruation panties which are very funny and there are paintings - anything you can think about, you can find it there."

Do you think people may find the exhibition shocking?

"I guess they may, some of the exhibits are quite shocking, I would say, even the videos are a bit strange. But I would say that they would be accepted. If people see it in the whole, I don't thing they would be leaving the gallery disgusted."

Is the exhibition going to travel anywhere from Prague?

"We hope it will go to Brno because we have some friends and colleagues working with us and they reside in Brno. And there are some signs that we could be taking a part of it to Vienna."

Alena Kralikova, the coordinator of the exhibition and the education director at Prague's Gender Studies centre.

Poking fun at TV commercials featuring the notorious blue liquid and suggesting that menstruation is a kind of illness, the artist take a fresh, mostly tongue-in-cheek approach to the topic, with a lot of humour and imagination.

Tento mesic menstruuji (I'm Having My Period This Month) Gallery Art Factory, Vaclavske namesti 15, Prague 1 February 4th through 28th