The Vagina Museum reopens in Bethnal Green this week
(Picture: )When it was announced back in 2017 that the world’s first ever bricks and mortar Vagina Museum would, um, open in London, it made headlines the world over. Founded by Florence Schechter, it began as a pop-up and then secured a permanent home in Camden Market two years later. Over 120,000 visitors flocked to the site in its first six months, and the small but mighty museum weathered the pandemic. But then landlords declined to renew its lease – the premises given instead to a clothes shop – and the Vagina Museum found itself homeless and at real risk of permanent closure.
But – hurrah! – fast forward a handful of menstrual cycles, and the Vagina Museum is back with a new site, three times the size of its original, in Bethnal Green. Opening this week (March 19), the world’s only museum dedicated to the gynaecological anatomy has a swish new spot in a creative hub called ENTER. Run by immersive theatre company Exit Productions under a property guardianship, the building will also house a co-working space, a café, an escape room and several rehearsal spaces. It’s a haven for adventurous creatives – on the day I’m there, Joe Ball, one half of Exit Productions, has just secured a commission for the wall of the café. In dialogue with the Guerrilla Girls’ iconic work pointing out that 85 per cent of nudes in galleries are of women, non-male artists will paint “male butts” on the wall.
