Two exhibitions at the Design Museum Brussels are turning the spotlight on women

Women designers remained mostly invisible for a long time. The exhibitions Here We Are! and Untold Stories aim to change that.

Women have always made modern design. But their traces were often erased, either just because they were women or because their creator husbands were catching all of the light.

Two exhibitions at the Design Museum Brussels are turning the spotlight on these women. Here We Are!, conceived by the Vitra Design Museum, is doing so by presenting the works of 80 women designers. From the pioneers to the modernists, from those who colourfully rode the second feminist wave to contemporary creators pushing the boundaries of their discipline. The history of feminine design is inseparable from the history of feminism and of women’s struggle to break away from the roles to which they were assigned.

Untold Stories focuses on Belgium, with works by more than 50 women designers and creators, active between 1880 and 1980. The creations put on display here come from over 40 collections, and many of them are unsigned and have never been shown to the public before. A few famous names appear alongside anonymous figures operating in the background of domestic or colonial industrial contexts.

More than the work of individual pioneers, this show’s narration favours the collaborations, networks, and material culture underlying the productions of these women creators.