“Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners ... she will be born.”
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
What does a woman need to become an artist? Virginia Woolf’s response, in the 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, was money, a private room, training, and leisure. A small wooden box, 3.5 by 2 by 2.5 inches, and grassroots artivism are the means chosen by Women Beyond Borders to answer that same question. Founded by Lorraine Serena in 1991, the cross-cultural project invited women—with varying levels of artistic education—to transform a box to one’s liking, encompassing more than 900 participants across 50 countries. A Box of One’s Own explores how Women Beyond Borders fostered experimental spaces for doing-it-yourself and doing-it-together and highlighted artistic media often dismissed as being coded feminine. Through feminist practice and collectivity, artists, curators, and coordinators challenged hurdles for artistic expression in a wide array of geopolitical contexts.
This exhibition is organized around four interconnecting constellations: Body, Home, Craft, and Memory. Cis and trans women’s bodies have been centered in political and moral disputes, yet they stand at the frontline of change seeking justice, safety, and pleasure.
