Opening Casa de Mulheres, Mam-Ba, 2024
about the project
Founded in 2024 by Brazilian visual artist Neyde Lantyer (based in the Netherlands) and Uruguayan architect, scholar and curator Alejandra Muñoz ((based in Brazil), project challenges the persistent marginalisation of women’s artistic contributions within the global art system by amplifying voices historically pushed to the periphery of dominant narratives. Grounded in an intersectional framework, it affirms women’s creative, iintellectual, and political centrality in contemporary artistic production, while opening a space to imagine alternative futures within the arts.
The inaugural exhibition, Casa de Mulheres 2024, was held at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia. It opened alongside the project’s academic programme, the seminar Female Protagonisms in Arts, Architecture & Design, organised in partnership with the Federal University of Bahia through the School of Fine Arts (EBA/UFBA), the Faculty of Architecture (FAUFBA), and the Pro-Rectorate of Extension (PROEXT/UFBA). Bringing together 51 women artists and 29 women scholars, the initiative fostered a dynamic exchange between artistic practice, academic research, and community engagement—marking an important step in establishing the project as a collaborative, transnational platform.
IIn 2025, the project expanded its reach to the Netherlands with Women House Amsterdam, held at NDSM Fuse. Featuring 25 international artists working across installation, textile art, performance, video, painting, photography, and sculpture, the exhibition deepened the project’s intersectional framework by examining the complex entanglements of gender, race, class, sexuality, age, and migration within contemporary artistic production. By foregrounding women’s practices and lived experiences, this second edition engaged critically with the place of feminist art in the twenty-first century, bringing visibility to a wide range of artistic approaches and illuminating new dimensions of women’s creative and political imaginaries.
Feminist art has historically functioned both as a transformative force and as a critical methodology within contemporary artistic practice, challenging the patriarchal frameworks that govern visibility, authorship, and value in the art world. Emerging from the political struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, it reclaimed women’s bodies, voices, and lived experiences as sites of knowledge and agency, while simultaneously mobilising feminist strategies to disrupt dominant narratives and foreground alternative modes of representation.
Women House / Casa de Mulheres positions feminist art as an ongoing, collective, and intersectional practice. By centring women’s artistic practices across diverse geographies and cultural contexts, the initiative expands feminist discourse, engaging critically with questions of gender, race, class, sexuality, age, and migration. In doing so, it affirms feminist art not only as a historical movement, but as a living, transnational platform through which new creative, political, and social futures can be imagined.
Across its editions, the WomenHouse / Casa de Mulheres Project has advanced intersectional feminist discourse in the arts, actively confronting the structural inequities that shape institutional recognition, curatorial representation, and the art market, while foregrounding the resilience, creativity, and collective agency of women artists across generations and geographies. Committed to reimagining the future through dialogue and community building, the initiative creates opportunities for underrepresented female voices while honouring the legacy of feminist art. By integrating Indigenous, decolonial, ecofeminist, and anti-systemic perspectives, Women House integrates social justice and contributes to the envisioning of more inclusive and equitable artistic futures.
Women House Amsterdam, Ndsm Fuse, may -July 2025
Women House Amsterdam, Ndsm Fuse, may -July 2025
tribute to “womanhouse” (1972)
The project pays tribute to the groundbreaking Womanhouse (1972) exhibition, led by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro in Los Angeles, USA, which famously transformed lived experience into a radical artistic discourse, deconstructing stereotypes about women’s roles in domestic spaces. Womanhouse is widely recognized as the first feminist exhibition in history.
← Catalog cover featuring Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, by Sheila de Bretteville, 1972.
acknowledgements
Some individuals, institutions, and organisations that have contributed to the Casa de Mulheres / Women’s House Project:
In Salvador da Bahia: Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia MAM-BA, Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Faculdade de Arquitetura da UFBA, Escola de Belas Artes da UFBA (EBA-UFBA), Reitoria de Extensão da UFBA, FotoLab, Marília Gil (Director MAM-BA), Daniela Steele (DIMUS), Caroline Vieira Sant’Anna (TV Bahia), Inês Linke (UFBA), Ludmila Britto (UFBA), Renata Voss (designer), Patricia Paixão (photographer), Priscila Miraz (A Tarde), Paula Albuquerque.
In Amsterdam: NDSM FUSE, Conselho de Cidadania dos Países Baixos, Jolanda Lanslot (director NDSM Fuse), Jasi Pereira (artist), Margô Dalla (journalist), Marcia Nunes (CCPB), Ana Claudia (CCPB), Julia dos Santos Batista, Ester Eva Damen, Allard Botterham (NDSM FUSE), Filipe Marques (Embaixada do Brasil) & Mayara Ferrão (artist), who generously allowed her photograph to be used as the poster of the Women House Amsterdam.
The website of Women House / Casa de Mulheres is designed by Almany Jr. / The visual identity is by Neyde Lantyer
Many many thanks!