Bron: Amsterdam Weekly
Datum: 18 augustus 2004
Titel: Show me yours and Ill show you mine
Ondertitel: A course on modelling female genitals gets quite revealing.
Door: Claudia Coenen

Come inside and experience the vagina as never before!
A Young woman in heavy black 1970s glasses draws our attention to an attraction we had not notices, the Magistrale Museum der Vaginale Verbeelding, part of the De Parade theatre festival.
Do you only want to see the museum or do you also want to take the KomKutjeKleiencours? KomKutjeKleien? (Just to be clear, that means: Come and model a vagina in clay.)
The course is the best part, she adds. Only the best for us, is our credo. We -two women in our 30s- buy a combined ticked and enter the museum tent.
The exhibition contains several artistic multimedia impressions of female genitalia and some artwork by other people who have done the course. We can do better, my friend and I agree. We hurry outsider to start the fun.
Youre finished looking at the exhibition already? The woman asks us. We nod and help each other into white overcoats like the one shes wearing. Our clothes protected, were ready to start the course.
There are six wooden drop-leaf tables in front of the museum tent, already supplied with pencils and pens. I squeeze myself into one of the tiny desks and experience primary school deja vu.
Here you go, girls, says the woman, who now appears to be our art instructor. She deposits two chunks of clay on our desks. Let your imagination run wild.
As my hands surround the clay, my mind looks about for inspiration. I notice two men sitting in my right. Behind them are two boys, aged about 10 and 12. The men probably thought this would be a novel way to babysit their kids. Sure, go and see the show, honey, well be OK. And look where they end up, adds my friend.
The elder of the two boys is using his thumb to create a phallus out of the clay. That does not look like a vagina at all, I say. He shrugs his shoulders, but the beginning of a smile on his slightly curling upper lip suggests that he is enjoying himself. The younger boy next to him looks at me angrily.
I look at the chunk of clay in front of me. A Dutch expression comes to mind: De beste stuurlui staan aan wal. Meaning roughly: The best coaches are in the stands. My friend is already busy with something that looks like an actual vagina. I have never been into realism, though, so I start making two enormous breasts out of my chunk of clay.
My neighbour on the other side is a guy in his late 20s. When I glance at what he is doing he coyly covers his artwork with both hands, as if I might try to copy his. I stick my tongue out at him and concentrate on the two clay nipples I am rolling with my left hand.
We students have become part of the museums display by now. Passers by stop to watch us in action, shaking their heads in disbelief. My friend is reaching the completion of the artwork: she shapes her vagina into a heart. I have to admit: it looks quite good.
To achieve something that resembles what we are supposed to be making in the course, I shape two enormous labia around a hole, which I pencil-pierce in my sculpture, right under the breasts. Meanwhile, for her finishing touch -the slit- my friend needs a knife. She walks to the boys desks and asks to borrow theirs. The younger boy looks at the vagina in my friends left hand, and says: Yours look more real than mine. That is because I have seen more of them in real life, she replies.
An African fertility statue, the teacher remarks when she sees my creation. I nod, as if that is exactly what I intended my artwork to be. She gives me a certificate. It will receive a prominent citation on my curriculum vitae, I promise her. I can imagine it: Course in vaginal representation.
We donate our artworks -titled Heartly Vaginal and Hot Breath (do not ask) respectively- to the museum, as sources of inspiration for future students.
The two boys are just being picked up by their father, a hippyish man in his 40s, as we get ready to leave the museum tent. (S0 much for our babysitting theory earlier.) The boys are still working on names for their pieces. Call it Jessica, the older boy says, handing his phallus to the teacher. Ooh, my friend and I say. You are in love with a girl named Jessica! The boy laughs -and blushes.
It is now the younger boys turn to name his creation, which looks rather like a toilet paper holder to me. He wrinkles his forehead. Come on, the adults say. You have to give it a name.
OK, the boy says. Call it Dirty. He walks quickly away. The adults are silent for a few seconds.