Exhibition "Not fit for Marketing – Farm Women Beyond the Idyll"

Gmunden takes on a special role within the communale oö 2026 programme: the transition from history to HERstory. Women are brought out of the "blind spot" of male-dominated historiography through a conscious reinterpretation, with their deeds, experiences, and contributions placed at the center — aspects that were often missing from traditional accounts and continue to be missing today.

The exhibition features photographic works depicting farm women and rural lifeworlds beyond classic advertising and image-making tropes. The focus is on perspectives that don't smooth things over, but really look. The starting point is a call to female photographers to open up their archives: the search was for images that had been sorted out, overlooked, or never published — because they were too imperfect, too unmarketable, too honest, or simply not fitting for media and marketing.

"Not Fit for Marketing" turns a female gaze on what lies between staging and reality — and asks which images of farm women become visible when they don't have to serve a purpose. And which ones are we still missing today?

• Venue: Stadt Gmunden
• Cooperation: communale oö and Stadt Gmunden, supported by LEADER-Traunsteinregion