MoMA Exhibition Explores Body Politics and Public Space Through Photography

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York launched an exhibition titled Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives, running from 20 September 2026 to 2 May 2027. The show revisits and expands upon a landmark feminist art project that analysed body language shaped by patriarchal structures.

The exhibition centres on a pioneering work that organised images from various visual sources—books, newspapers, advertisements, and film stills—by types of body language, revealing how gender is socially produced through the choreography of bodies in public spaces. This foundational project serves as a framework for the exhibition’s broader inquiry.

MoMA’s acting chief curator of photography highlights that the exhibition not only honours the historical significance of this feminist work but also invites contemporary artists to extend its themes. These artists use photography to explore how bodies interact with space while addressing intersectional issues such as race, colonialism, Indigenous sovereignty, sexuality, and self-representation.

Featured artists include Nona Faustine, who uses her body to draw attention to sites marked by histories of enslavement and racial violence; Martine Gutierrez, who challenges identity construction by merging multiple creative roles; and Joiri Minaya, whose work critiques the exoticisation and commodification of Caribbean women. Other contributors like Yuki Kihara and Wendy Red Star focus on Indigenous perspectives, shifting narratives from colonial viewpoints to self-representation and living memory.

The exhibition also presents works by K8 Hardy and Paulina Olowska, who investigate how gender and identity are continuously performed and rewritten through bodily gestures. The show underscores that questions of public space and gender fluidity remain central to ongoing political debates, reflecting complexities that have evolved since the original project’s inception 50 years ago.

By creating a dialogue between the historical project and contemporary artistic practices, Taking Back Our Space establishes a critical framework that challenges and expands understandings of body politics in public spaces today. The exhibition invites visitors to reconsider how bodies are positioned, represented, and politicised in shared environments.