The director of London’s Vagina Museum will step down from the role next month to “step back and recharge”.
Also its founder, Florence Schechter created the museum in 2017, beginning with a series of pop-up events. In 2019 the museum opened its first fixed premises in Camden Market, with the exhibition Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How to Fight Them.
In 2022, the museum was opened temporarily in a property guardianship in East London. In 2023, the museum opened in its new long-term location in Bethnal Green, supported by a £85,000 crowdfunding campaign, after almost six months of temporary closure.
Vagina Museum meets crowdfunding target for new East London location
Now, a fundraising campaign is hoped to ease the museum’s transition to a new director.
Titled “Thank you for your cervix, Florence”, the campaign aims to raise £4,900 in total, £700 for each of the seven years of Schechter’s term as Director.
Schechter said: “Taking the museum from just an idea to its long term home in Bethnal Green has been an experience I will never forget. It has been an honour to work alongside the best people from museums, feminist activism, and health.”
The decision to step-down from the museum “comes from a place of personal reflection and the recognition that it’s time for me to take a step back and recharge” Schechter said.
“It’s been a wild ride and I want to take some time to figure out what my next chapter is. I’m open to whatever opportunities the universe has to bring me.”
Zoe Williams, the Museum’s Head of Communications and Fundraising will act as Interim Director for a six month period.
Jo Joyce, Trustee of the Vagina Museum and Senior Counsel at Taylor Wessing said: “The past seven years have seen Florence achieve the impossible, over and over again. Under her entrepreneurial leadership, the Vagina Museum has grown into the globally-recognised organisation and beloved London space that it is now.
“Florence has worked incredibly hard on this project, starting from her kitchen table and carrying through into day-to-day running of a physical space.”
