SPECULUM. DE L’AUTRE FEMME
Bruxelles, European Parliament
March 4-6, 2025
Promoted by Associazione Genesi
Curated by Ilaria Bernardi
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Associazione Genesi presents an exhibition in Brussels, at the European Parliament, curated by Ilaria Bernardi, dedicated to women’s rights. The exhibition includes 12 works from the Associazione’s contemporary art collection. These works by twelve well-known international artists encourage visitors to reflect on important themes linked to human rights, interpreting them from a woman’s perspective.
The title of the event, Speculum. De l’autre femme, refers to the eponymous book by Luce Irigaray (Bernissart, 1930), psychoanalyst and philosopher of Belgian origin, but French by adoption, published in 1974 and one of the cornerstones of European women’s thinking. It is thanks to the Franco-Belgian identity of the author of this volume that the European Parliament can ideally connect its two seats: Strasbourg (France) and Brussels (Belgium).
The title, Speculum, is a reference to the concave mirror that is used in gynecology to look inside a woman’s body. As Luce Irigaray tells us, throughout the history of Western thought women have never had a site, a placement, a representation that wasn’t arranged according to male parameters: it is thus necessary to found a new myth of the origin that will fully take into account and finally do justice to female otherness, the other woman cited in the title. The aim of the book by Irigaray, borrowed from the exhibition at the European Parliament, is to finally give women their voice so that they can talk about themselves, as well as to finally give women the images to represent themselves, no longer as a reflection of the male model of reference, but as female otherness now free to affirm with pride their intrinsic diversity and, consequently, their rights.
The works exhibited encourage a reflection on six of the most important themes linked to human rights, interpreting them from a female point of view:
– The Memory of a People through the works by Anna Boghiguian (Cairo, Egypt, of Armenian origin, 1946) and Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (Zakopane, Poland, 1978);
– Multicultural Identity through the works by Otobong Nkanga (Kano, Niger, 1974) and Silvia Rosi(Scandiano, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 1992);
– Victims of Power through the works by Shirin Neshat (Qazvin, Iran, 1957) and Binta Diaw (Milan, 1995);
– The Color of a Person’s Skin through the works by Zanele Muholi (Umlazi, Durban, South Africa, 1972) and Betye Saar (Los Angeles, CA, United States, 1926);
– The Female Condition through the works by Monica Bonvicini (Venice, 1965) and Zoë Buckman (Hackney, London, UK, 1985);
– The Safeguarding of the Environment through the works by Elena Mazzi (Reggio Emilia, Italy, 1984) and Tala Madani (Tehran, Iran, 1981).
The exhibition thus gives women a voice as concerns major themes linked to human rights, thereby reinstating them in the official history of the world from which they have been excluded for thousands of years.