Behind frosted glass are silhouettes of silk undergarments, protecting parts of a woman only seen after dark. At first it feels intrusive to be so close to these items, culled from the Oakland Museum of California’s collection of historical objects. But after passing through the rest of the museum’s Hella Feminist exhibition, the intimacy of this opening display is a fitting introduction to the show’s stories of strength, courage, power and resilience.
Running until January 2023, the multimedia exhibit guides viewers through the waves of Bay Area feminist movements, highlighting both broad trends and impactful moments. A tidbit of hyper-local history lives in a photograph of Toni Stone, the first Black woman to play professional baseball in the United States, who later joined the San Francisco Sea Lions.
Curated by Carin Adams, Erendina Delgadillo and Lisa Silberstein, Hella Feminist was originally supposed to open in 2020, paying homage to the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment. During the pandemic-induced delay, the political stakes for feminism have changed dramatically, allowing visitors to reflect even more deeply on that milestone of women’s suffrage (which at the time represented only partial victory—Black women would continue to fight for the right to vote).
Each piece in the exhibition, which is a mix of items from the museum’s collection and commissioned artwork from contemporary artists, was chosen with the intention of moving away from, as the curators say, “frameworks that center whiteness and other forms of privilege.” Like meditation and mindfulness, the exhibit partakes in a holistic viewpoint of the human experience—sectioned by the mind, body and spirit—with each thematic display going a layer deeper.
“The Mind” explores the realities of showing up in a world of physical expectations largely decreed by the male gaze. We see a projection of a “perfect” hourglass-shaped torso tightly interlaced by a corset. Even today, undergarment brands like SKIMS normalize and even encourage a certain waist-to-hip ratio. The corset, a physical manifestation of painfully unsolicited beauty standards, becomes a symbol of emotional restriction and physical suffocation.
