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, which runs from September 20, 2026, to May 2, 2027. The show revisits and expands upon a landmark feminist art project that analysed body language shaped by patriarchal structures, using a wide array of visual sources including books, newspapers, advertisements, and film stills.

Central to the exhibition is the work of a pioneering artist who organised images by types of body language to reveal how gender is socially produced and performed in public spaces. This foundational project serves as a framework for contemporary artists featured in the show, who use photography to explore intersections of race, colonialism, Indigenous sovereignty, sexuality, and self-representation.

The exhibition includes works by artists such as Nona Faustine, who highlights sites marked by histories of enslavement and racial violence through her body; Martine Gutierrez, who challenges identity construction by merging roles of artist, editor, model, and creative director; and Joiri Minaya, whose art critiques the exoticism and commodification of Caribbean women. Other featured artists include Yuki Kihara, who shifts narratives from colonial gazes to Indigenous Samoan fa’afafine self-representation, and Wendy Red Star, who transforms archives into living Indigenous memory.

Additionally, the show presents works by K8 Hardy and Paulina Olowska, who investigate how gender and identity are continuously performed and rewritten through bodily gestures. The exhibition aims to create a dialogue between the historical project and these contemporary perspectives, highlighting how questions of public space and gender fluidity remain central to ongoing political debates.

According to MoMA’s acting chief curator of photography, the exhibition not only reaffirms the historical importance of the original project but also establishes a critical framework that contemporary artists continue to test and expand. The issues identified over 50 years ago have evolved, gaining new complexities in today’s social and political contexts.

Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives invites visitors to reconsider the politics of the body and space, emphasizing the ongoing relevance of feminist and intersectional critiques in public discourse. The exhibition runs through early May 2027, offering a broad and nuanced exploration of how bodies inhabit and negotiate public environments.