Exhibition ‘Both feet in the stirrups. What if women* had control over their private parts?’

Both feet in the stirrups. What if women* had control over their private parts?

From 27 June to 29 November 2026

The exhibition is co-curated by the teams from le Secteur des Arts plastiques de la Province de Hainaut and the teams from the non-profit organisation Office de Tourisme – Musée de l’Hôpital Notre-Dame à la Rose in Lessines.

I could write a second book, One day I could no longer… see a gynaecologist, and I assure you it would be a bestseller translated into some thirty languages, so many of us feel humiliated and infantilised, feet in the stirrups, like old bangers tinkered with by mechanics, forced to watch them forget that there is a person at the end of that vagina.

Ovidie, La chair est triste hélas, Points, Ed. Julliard, 2023, P.17

Lying on the chair, both feet resting on the cold metal stirrups, legs spread apart, genitals exposed, soon the speculum prepares to penetrate the warm cavity leading to the so-called female genitalia in order to carry out the gynaecological examination. From this position, the pelvis tilted, in a vulnerable yet codified posture dictated by the needs of the examination, the naked patients may, quite legitimately, feel as though they have been stripped of their private parts.

Between practices that were not always consensual and instruments that have changed little since their inception, this exhibition aims to examine the role of men in the medicalisation and instrumentalisation of women’s intimate bodies. This essentially patriarchal perspective is laid bare through the works of contemporary artists, presented in dialogue with the collections of the Hôpital Notre-Dame à la Rose. These collections remind us that, indeed, the history of gynaecology has been shaped by the hand of men since its origins in the 19th century. Yet until the 17th century, it was women—healers, midwives, witches…—who passed on knowledge regarding their own anatomy and its functioning.

From clinical observation to perspectives on sexuality, via the monitoring of maternity, this exhibition thus seeks to open up new perspectives—perhaps ones that are more respectful of women’s privacy, autonomy, and knowledge regarding their own anatomy and health.

What if, from now on, women were to reclaim ownership of their intimate bodily experiences, becoming subjects of their own lives rather than objects to be conceded?

*This term includes all people who identify as women

Featured artists:

• Fanny Alet
• Nathalie Amand
• Giuseppe Arnone
• Chiara Bambusa
• Priscilla Beccari
• Camille Dufour
• Emelyne Duval
• Victoria Lepourcq
• Karine Marenne
• Maxence Mathieu
• Romina Remmo
• Alessandra Pirronitto
• Johanna Santamaria
• Vany Verdelli

Informations and booking: www.notredamealarose.be or +32(0)68/33 24 03