Our Bodies Are Not the Problem, the Problem Is Power

Print on Curtain and Interior Installation by Olivia Plender.

Olivia Plender’s installation has transformed GWL’s community room, making it more comfortable for the people who use it, while also introducing a new focus on feminist and queer health activism.

The curtain which now spans the space features a drawing of women associated with Our Bodies, Ourselves. First published in the US by the Boston Women’s Health Collective in 1970, this book has gone on to be revised, republished and repurposed around the world, adapted into different contexts by local feminist organisation and women’s health groups.

The new posters are based on images found in the various editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves as well as Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, from the 1970s until today.

These components all foreground the histories of marginalised people’s incredible efforts to change power dynamics by making demands, taking up space and creating forms of mutual education.

An important aspect of Plender’s commission is the ambition to support and enhance an environment where essential forms of care and organising can take place. For Our Bodies Are Not the Problem, the Problem is Power, the walls and ceilings of the Community Room have been repainted in a new shade which the artist calls “Lavender Menace”, referencing the powerful initiative to reclaim and repurpose this term in the face of homophobia within the Women’s Liberation Movement. New lighting and furnishings bring a softness to the space, making it more flexible and accommodating. This is an installation which is designed to aid rest and recuperation as well as provide practical support for a number of activities and in so doing nurture community, activism and resistance.

The women depicted on the curtain are: Kornelia Slavova, Jane Pincus, Liana Galstyan, Marlies Bosch, Ester Shapiro, Lobsang Dechen, Toshiko Honda, Bobana Macanovic, Tatyana Kotzeva, Sally Whelan, Stanislava Otsavic, Norma Swenson, Miho Ogino, Codou Bop, Toyoko Nakanishi, Kathy Davis, at a meeting of some of the translators who adapted Our Bodies, Ourselves around the world, held in the Netherlands in 2001.