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Questions answered on the YEAR OF THE WOMEN*
Last update: July 17th, 2022
Answered questions until now:
What was the YEAR OF THE WOMEN*?
Who was involved in the YEAR OF THE WOMEN*?
Why has there been an intervention at all?
Was the intervention successful?
Why is it important to document the project?
How did this archive project start?
Why isn’t there a printed catalog?
How was the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* programmed?
What was the available budget?
What is the title YEAR OF THE WOMEN* all about?
How was the project received?
Was the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* a (hostile) lesbian takeover?
The YEAR OF THE WOMEN* was a yearlong queer/feminist intervention in the Schwules Museum. The project addressed concerns that were as challenging as they are complex: First, it aimed to lay bare for discussion the discriminatory structures in the museum itself, but also in the art and cultural world as a whole. Secondly, the participation and self-representation of women*, lesbians, inter*, non-binary, trans* and agender people (abbreviated: FLINTA*) in one of the world’s largest incubators for art, curatorial research, archiving and mediation of LGBTQIA+ history and culture was structurally implemented. There was a prehistory: In 2008 already, the institution, which until that point served an exclusively endo, cis-male, gay, and white-oriented community, made the decision to open itself to the entire LGBTQIA+ spectrum. 10 years later, this claim had not been realized (see "Why was there an intervention in the first place?"). To truly anchor queer, feminist, anti-racist, and intersectional politics in museum structures and values, it was necessary to build trust with previously unrepresented groups and to implement contemporary aesthetic and feminist practices of curating and mediation.
The intervention affected the museum at every level of operation: from the collections and the archive, to the exhibition and event programming, the store, the café, the administration, and the SMU’s legal association.
The YEAR OF THE WOMEN* program included many voices and was developed from and with diverse communities. It was often collectively curated and focused on positions that rarely received representation rather than those which are already-known and canonized. The activities of the women's and lesbian movement, which have already become historical, were matched with the young, intersectional, queer-feminist and trans* activism that is particularly agile and diverse here in Berlin. This allowed encounters, confrontations and new alliances across generations and subject positions. Throughout five rooms, the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* hosted a bar, gave nine exhibitions on FLINTA* art, culture, and activism, and presented a year-long film series, along with an extensive program of events including lectures, conferences, symposia, roundtable discussions, workshops, concerts, film nights, and tours. The most comprehensive YEAR OF THE WOMEN*exhibition, LESBIAN VISIONS offered, for the first time ever, an overview of more than a century’s and six generations of queer women’s* artistic positions. The 12 Moons Film Lounge featured 91 films and video works drawing on 50 years of feminist filmmaking. With its focus on an intersectional treatment of the themes of economy, ecology, resistance and desire of FLINTA*, it complemented the program of the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* and critically commented on its gaps. A relational artistic installation transformed the museum café into the Dyke Bar SPIRITS, which picked up historical references and opened a platform for debate. It thus traced the cacophonous history of WLINTA*'s self-organized safer spaces in a more complex and precise way than classical exhibition formats could achieve.
The year marked a turning point for the SMU as an institution. It strengthened the museum as a place of mutual learning with and by multiply-marginalized people; it went beyond a mere presentation of their positions. The museum opened itself to sustained articulation of complex political and aesthetic contexts. Never before has there been so much discussion in and about the museum, with heated debates that accompanied individual projects as well as the entire program. At the same time, it was the museum's most frequented year ever. [1]
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, May 2nd, 2022)
[1] The only year to surpass these results occurred in in 2015 with the show Homosexualitäten (Homosexualities). This exhibition was shown in cooperation with the German Historical Museum, was widely publicized nationwide and had a correspondingly large marketing budget.
The project was initiated and managed by Birgit Bosold and Vera Hofmann. Birgit Bosold has been a member of the board of the Schwules Museum since 2006. Vera Hofmann was a member of the board from 2016-2020. The program was designed by a wide range of curators, artists, speakers, and SMU staff. Most of them live in Berlin, brought with them a wide variety of professional and private experiences, and come from different generations. Professional curatorial expertise was not a prerequisite for helping to shape the program. The subject positions of the participants in relation to gender were diverse: women, lesbians, queers, trans, nonbinary, inter*, two-spirit, agender, and others as well as some gay cis men collaborated. The YEAR OF THE WOMEN* was supported by all of the Museum’s committees, especially the Board of Directors. It was made possible by funding from the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and by the voluntary commitment of many participants. Contributors’ names are listed under Participants.
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, May 2nd, 2022)
We, Birgit Bosold and Vera Hofmann, - the only female-read members of the Schwules Museum board in 2017 - simply had enough of the subtle, sometimes overt sexism in the museum and its community, which was reflected in the SMU's structures and exhibition program, and not least in the name. Even if there are good reasons against renaming the SMU, because the name is an established brand or because "queer" sounds rather tame in the German context, it still testifies to the hegemony of gay masculinity* in the community. (For the English-speaking readers: "Schwul", unlike "gay" in English, refers exclusively to homosexual men*). In the summer of 2017, we “snapped”, as Sara Ahmed calls it, meaning the moment when we decided we need to take action. This was accompanied by the sobering conclusion we had to draw 10 years after the SMU’s 2008 announcement of its strategic realignment. As an evaluation of the museum’s 80 exhibitions from 2008-2017 shows, almost 50% of the projects were dedicated to gay artists, protagonists, or themes. 31% attempted to represent a more diverse queer cosmos, while only 12% presented lesbian positions, 8% trans* positions, and only 2% of the exhibitions focused on the specific perspectives of Black, Indigenous and People of Color. The result is unfortunately typical of the distribution of power and resources within the LGBTQIA+ community. In fact, the Berlin Senate's allocations to the city's queer organizations between 2008-2017 were distributed very similarly: half of the funding went to gay-positioned institutions, while everyone else was permitted to split the other half.
Further reading:
Bosold, B., Hofmann, V.: Jahr der Frau_en, Schwules Museum 2018
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, May 2nd, 2022)
2018 was the most successful in the museum's thirty-year history. This is based on the number of visitors and the income from admissions. It also applies to the media attention and reach, as well as the large number of new collaborations with other cultural institutions, universities, and research institutes which resulted.
Perhaps the most important success of the project, however, are the new standards established in the organizational culture. All areas of SMU, Archives & Collections, Program Management and Administration now actively work to combat discrimination, enable more people to participate and recognize exclusionary mechanisms. The result is that the teams working at the museum, and the programming itself, are far more diverse than prior the intervention, though there is still plenty of room for improvement.
New volunteers in the archive and museum operations rejuvenated the circle of active members, and many new members of the association have since decided on the SMU’s strategy. In 2018, a historic vote took place: a team of candidates who clearly positioned themselves as queer-feminist was elected, and no person from the opposing candidates, who have lined up at short notice and had a decidedly gay position, received the necessary votes for a mandate. 2018 also saw the adoption of SMU's new mission statement, which reflects its programmatic shift.
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, May 2nd, 2022)
Although the project received a lot of attention from many communities and in the queer press, the media response beyond the LGBTQIA+ realm was rather modest. But also the coverage of the queer media was not very satisfying. Texts that often only argued on the level of resentment-laden debates conducted in social media did not do justice to the relevance of the project from our point of view.
In the Schwules Museum itself, the significance of the program for the development of the house is still little reflected. Neither has it been sufficiently archived in analog form so far, nor is it communicated to new employees.
The purpose of this website is to intervene once again: Into the memory practices of the Schwules Museum and the LGBTQIA+ community. By archiving it in its entirety and allowing contributions that reflect on the project to be added on an ongoing basis, it makes an active contribution to not forgetting the fundamental role of the program and counteracts distorted and one-sided mediation.
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, May 20th, 2022)
The idea for a publication on the project arose at the end of 2018. Over the past few years, Vera Hofmann sifted through the existing material, prepared it, and developed concepts for archiving, documentation, and reflection. It was possible to acquire some funding for the project. With the support of a small team, the website was implemented from October 2021 until September 2022. The project was financially supported by the Stiftung Kunstfonds, the Schwules Museum, various private sponsors.
(answered by Birgit Bosold, May 20th, 2022)
Initially, a comprehensive book was planned with a website only for archiving. However, it was not possible to obtain sufficient funding for this idea. It was still important to me to document the entire program and not have to choose what is shown. Documenting the entire project in digital form now meets this requirement better than a slimmed-down book could. During the pandemic, moreover, capacities and priorities in the arts and culture sector with its multitude of freelancers have shifted considerably. The format, conceived during that time, remains flexible, so that different forms of contributions and lengths can be added also at a later date.
(answered by Vera Hofmann, May 25th, 2022)
First, let’s take a look at the inner workings of the SMU to understand the constraints and limitations within which its programs, and indeed the YEAR OF THE WOMEN*, came into existence. Programming at the Schwules Museum is complicated puzzle work. There is no directive set by chief curator. Instead, decisions are made in a collective process. The so-called "exhibition group" made up of staff and board members is responsible for the exhibition program; the board, which works on a voluntary basis, makes the final decision. Curators and organizers have the curatorial and artistic responsibility for their own exhibitions and events, which allows for artistic freedom.
Larger exhibition projects in particular have a long lead time, because they are usually financed with grants. These must be applied for many months in advance. These applications are not always successful, so there is no security in planning. Approvals and rejections of applications are usually received at very short notice. There always has to be a plan B in place. Exhibitions and events must attract audiences because ticket revenues are a necessary part of SMU's funding. This means trying out experimental and new formats always poses a financial risk. The program must also still somehow fit into the museum’s culture, because all events and exhibitions rely on the support and goodwill of the entire SMU team.
As with almost all cultural institutions, SMU's resources are scarce in terms of both personnel and material resources. Some staff positions that are now central to a museum were not yet established in 2018, such as exhibition and event management, media technology and documentation.
Part of the program consisted of projects already planned independently of the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* that could be integrated thematically. This was the case for example with two exhibition projects that the co-founder of the SMU, Wolfgang Theis, realized together with their respective protagonists: RADICAL – LESBIAN – FEMINIST and SEX IM ALTER: Homage for Mahide Lein’s 69th birthday. The exhibition HIJRA FANTASTIK by Claudia Reiche was also already planned in another context and was integrated into the program. Aykan Safoğlu, then a member of the board, brought the exhibition colony/koloni, curated by members of the Turkish LGBTQIA+ association KAOS GL, to the SMU. The show, which had been banned in Ankara shortly before its opening, which then was altered to be able to be exhibited in Istanbul, was invited to show in a slot that freed up at short notice.
The projects developed specifically for the program were curated both by members of the SMU team, and by invited external curators and collectives. These invitations were made through our own networks and research or through proposals submitted to us. Thematically, we tried to make the program as polyphonic as possible. We sought to present culture, art, theory and activism in a diverse way and to pay attention to a balanced representation - with gaps due to the predominantly endo, cis, white, abled-bodied positioned team.
Event proposals could be submitted by all internal or external participants and were implemented if dates and capacities were available.
(answered by Vera Hofmann, June 1st, 2022)
The total budget for the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* was 120,000 Euros without in-house contributions. It was funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. In-house contributions include rent, administrative services, construction services and other operating costs. The documentation project had a budget of 29,000 euros. A huge amount of voluntary work went into both projects.
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, June 1st, 2022)
The title came about spontaneously, first as a working title during a late-evening brainstorming session. As is so often the case, the provisional title proved enormously stable. It was intended as a self-/ironic reference to the "International Women’s Year", which was announced by the UN General Assembly in 1975. As is well known, the UN project was not a resounding success, which is why we declared it once again. The title drew criticism: the lesbian community objected to the fact that we had not named our project "Year of the Lesbians"; some queer people who do not identify as female, especially trans* men, felt that the title did not address them; some people from the trans* community criticized the asterisk in the English-language title and the underscore in the German-language title as inappropriate, because trans* positions would not be sufficiently represented in the program. We wanted to mark with the underscore and asterisk that we understand "woman" as a socially and culturally produced category, and further, we wanted to distinguish ourselves and our program from trans-exclusionary positions within the queer scene, which were just starting to gain momentum at that time.
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, June 1st, 2022)
Never before has there been such intense, heated debates, which culminatied in veritable shitstorms and hate speech - about the museum, its strategic orientation, and the filling of positions and board memberships. These dabates were conducted with a ferocity we had not experienced before, both within the museum and in the city’s queer public sphere. Some of the fierce attacks against our program were simply due to (gay) sexism. However, the struggles around the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* are, taken as a whole, more complex, intertwined, and cannot be adequately reflected in a short text. Ultimately, they are struggles over cultural hegemony and thus for material and symbolic resources.
Particularly virulent in the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* became a new kind of alliance between long-established gay misogyny and newly forming transphobic so-called "radical feminist" positions. Contributions from gay authors who seriously addressed the concerns of the program in their own communities and in art, culture and society were exceedingly rare. Instead, there was a sweeping dismissal of queer and trans-feminist positions and rejection of the empowerment practices of WLINTA*, especially of QTIBIPOC. Those who were sympathetic to our project received intimidating threats on social media. We, as the two female-read board members, received multiple insults, slander and defamation on social media, in press articles, in letters to SMU or through private messages and emails. For the curious, the press review in the archive under first entry in the archive provides further links to the background of the debate as well as what we affectionately call our "little folder of hate", with a small selection of screenshots, the "best-of shit", so to speak. We didn't have access to the nastiest forums and threads, the contents of which reached us in bits and pieces through the grapevine. Maybe it's better that way.
In addition to all this, we received a lot of positive feedback from people on the ground and from different parts of the world. They all emphasized the cultural and political significance of our program and the welcoming atmosphere at the events. Even some of the most fiercely skeptical volunteers were sad to see the program end.
Many people from the QTIBIPOC communities were and remained skeptical, partly because of bad experiences they previously had with the SMU. There was and still is racism and sexism here. The teams and the program is not diverse enough and many positions are still excluded from being a part of the SMU. Because of the history and structures of the Schwules Museum, it was difficult, nigh impossible to recognize and practice intersectionality and sensitivity to discrimination as elemental principles in daily operations and curatorial practices. They were simply not sufficiently thought about and implemented - not even in the YEAR OF THE WOMEN*. At the very least, over the course of the year, many of the exclusionary practices finally became addressable and challenged.
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, June 1st, 2022)
No, it was not, we hereby state once more for posterity. We ourselves were surprised by the harsh headwind we faced from the gay and partly also lesbian communities in and around the SMU. The constantly repeated phantasm from the gay side was that "lesbians wanted to take over the store" and "help themselves to the gays’ wallets", of course because they "couldn't manage anything of their own". This archive ultimately proves how many people participated in the YEAR OF THE WOMEN* and what their concerns were. The project was not brutely enforced by two double-axe wielding lesbians against stiff resistance within the museum. It was carried by the entire SMU, the board, the employees, the program managers, the volunteers in the museum service and archive/library and the members of the association. All were explicitly invited to actively participate and contribute ideas and commitment. The fact that we nevertheless became the faces of the project had not least to do with the sexism we were up against: Here, once again, the practice of shifting the responsibility for feminist concerns to women* becomes apparent.
(answered by Vera Hofmann and Birgit Bosold, July 1st, 2022)
