Vaginas Untold

Until recently, provocative images of women had been used to sell everything from men’s fashion to hamburgers. And because – again until recently – creative departments in ad agencies were almost entirely male, these ads were probably created by men. While it was OK to use hints of boobs and bums and women’s mouth simulating…well, you know what…to sell products, women’s boobs are still not allowed to be shown bare in social media and women’s vaginas have always been taboo. While women have to “hide themselves” ignorance and shame will continue to hinder their progress and their health.

According to the public health institute in 2018, RIVM, only 60% of women in the Netherlands turn up to vital cervical cancer screenings
Refinery29 UK found that 48% of women have concerns about the appearance of their vulva.
A 2019 YouGov survey revealed that half of Britons could not identify or describe the function of the urethra (58%), the labia (47%) or vagina (52%).
One highly awarded ad campaign in 2018 made a very bold – and very successful – attempt to demystify what is simply part of a woman’s anatomy, the vagina, but five years ago, two women, Sandrine Le Goff and Jessica Kersten, creative partners and co-owners of Dutch creative agency, Cloudfactory, began a project to remove its taboo entirely.

The project, and ultimately a limited-edition book, Vaginas Untold, brings to life the stories of thirty-three women through poetry and art, with each woman’s vagina as the artwork’s canvas. Each work retells one woman’s story – a friendly monster that represents one woman’s battle with anorexia, a jarring image of a vagina covered in red roses paying tribute to her experience with endometriosis, a feminist Rapunzel reclaiming body hair, and a woman rowing through blood.
Published in an edition of 300