Less than a year after moving into its latest location, The Vagina Museum will close late Wednesday, 1st February 2023 as it searches for a new home.
The move comes as the museum says it received notice to vacate its premises at ENTER, 18 Victoria Park Square, which it has occupied under a property guardianship since March 2022.
Following a period of temporary homelessness between September 2021 and early 2022, the Vagina Museum reopened its doors to the public at the Bethnal Green site in March 2022.
ENTER, a collective and creative hub opening up empty buildings to creative use, will also be vacating the premises later this week.
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The Vagina Museum’s exhibitions, Periods: A Brief History and From A to V opened to the public in March 2022 and has welcomed almost 40,000 visitors in the ten months it has been operating in Bethnal Green.
The Vagina Museum is open from 10am-8pm today until Wednesday 1st February 2023. It will then close its doors and relocate. No new site is yet confirmed, and it is actively searching for a new home.
It is not the first time the museum, which began as a pop-up in 2017, has found itself without a physical location.
A crowdfunding event secured its first physical location in Camden Market in 2019. But, in 2021, the Vagina Museum’s lease came to an end, and it spent six months without a premises.
Florence Schechter, Director of the Vagina Museum, said the property guardianship agreement meant leaving on short notice had always been a possibility, but added: “We are disappointed that this notice to vacate has come so soon.
“We had exciting plans for future exhibitions which will have to be put on hold for now. We’ve proved once again the demand for a Vagina Museum.
“In the ten months the Vagina Museum has occupied our Bethnal Green home, we have achieved so much, welcoming thousands of people through our doors. Together with ENTER, we’ve transformed an empty, unused building into a thriving community space.
“We are an agile and resilient organisation who has overcome homelessness before, and we’re optimistic that we will do so again. We are actively searching for a new home, and we invite anyone who can help us in this endeavour to reach out in solidarity with our vital educational work.”
