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Although museums of art have been challenged for decades to correct their master narratives and to implement inclusion, they mostly remain rather immune to critical – feminist but also post-colonial or queer – strategies. Representation of women in museums and their permanent or long-term exhibitions continues to be in flagrant disproportion comparing to their male counterparts which does not apply only to former Eastern Europe. Following the “virtual feminist museum” which, as a utopian project, was formulated by Griselda Pollock in 2007 as a response to the surviving gender inequality in museums, the presentation focuses on the potential of digitalization of art for a radical transformation of patriarchal museum structures. The appeals as well as risks of such strategies will be reflected on examples of selected museum projects of digitalization of older art works and archivalia related to the matrilineal art tradition (which was often related to the moving and flickering images in the post-war era) but also on examples of independent and decentralized platforms that work with digitalized and/or digital artefacts of, mostly, contemporary women artists.

Martina Pachmanová is an art historian, theorist and curator. As an associate professor, she is affiliated with the Department of Art Theory and History at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (UMPRUM) in Prague. She specializes in gender, sexual politics and feminism in modern, post-war and contemporary art and visual culture, including design.