Muxe

Gender without borders? 

Are there places you may or may not be welcome? How about the football stadium, the yoga school and the toilets, out on the street or in rooms in your home? In addition to your position in society, your wealth or knowledge, gender determines where you’re allowed to be, or more figuratively, the space that you take or are given.  

The exhibition will ask you the question:

Gender without borders?

Tea house for men 

You will see this image in the exhibition. This Iranian teahouse is exclusively for men. The guests are talking, drinking tea and coffee, smoking waterpipes and listening to a professional storyteller, who is standing in the middle.

Photo credit: Teheran, Iran; Ahmad Khalili (1943-2008); 2002 
Theehuis

Behind the screens

This mashrabiya which you will see in the exhibition is a kind of frame or screen that is common in the Arab world. The women sitting behind it can look through the screen but are themselves concealed from the outside world.   

Photo credit: Egypt; c. 1960 
Afgeschermde wereld