Women House Catalogue

Two notions intersect in the Women House exhibition: a gender (female) and a space (the domestic sphere). Architecture and public space have traditionally been male preserves, whereas domestic space has been that of women; this historic fact is not, however, inevitable, as the exhibition demonstrates. Is the “woman-house” a refuge or a prison, or can it become a space for creativity? The exhibition and the catalogue that forms its extension work in tandem, the latter featuring essays that explore some of the most important themes these artists have in common. Giovanna Zapperi explores the notion of the “body-house” defined in the 1960s and 1970s (“Our bodies, ourselves,” p. 17); Flavia Frigeri examines the tent as an artistic statement and the different meanings  of its fictional nomadism (“Nomadic fictions,”  p. 34); Gill Perry discusses the “skin-house”  and different types of spatial imprints (“Traces of home and changes of skin,”p. 28); Gabriele Schor looks at the notion of the hou