Women have made significant contributions to arts throughout history, yet their names are often left out of the conversation. We learn about Caravaggio but rarely hear about Artemisia Gentileschi. We study Degas, Monet, and Renoir but Mary Cassatt is often overlooked. Were their works not good enough to be remembered? Of course not. These women were as incredibly talented as their male counterparts, but they had one handicap: they were women. Even today, while we are gaining more recognition, equality in the art world is still not a given. Did you know that women make up the majority of art graduates in many countries, yet remain underrepresented in professional art careers? Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists, 1950s - Now is an exhibition at the M+ museum in Hong Kong that seeks to challenge this imbalance by presenting twelve immersive environments created by women artists from around the world.
Art environments, also known as installation art, are immersive spaces that merge art, architecture, and design. It’s not just about walking through a museum and looking at paintings or sculptures; it’s a multi-sensory experience made of sounds, objects, and materials, where the audience can step into another dimension, feel the breeze on their skin, and interact with the surrounding space. Visitors become an essential part of the artwork — as it happens in real life, the way they act and interact with the space create a domino effect in which even the smallest action can shift the balance. People aren’t passive viewers anymore, but active participants that through their presence and actions complete the work.
In Laura Grisi’s work, Vento di Sud-Est (Wind Speed 40 Knots), we are struck by a gut of wind and invited to reflect on our connection with nature and our increasingly urbanised lifestyles. Aleksandra Kasuba’s Spectral Passage guides us through the colours of a rainbow reminding us of the fragility and ephemerality of our lives. We rediscover a sense of security and comfort by re-entering our mother’s womb in Lea Lublin’s work Penetration/Expulsion (del Fluvio Subtunal), and similarly, we are wrapped in protective white wings, like a sparrow shielding its chicks from the outside world, as seen in Judy Chicago’s Feather Room.
The intimacy and trust of the act of reproduction are evoked through Lygia Clark’s work A casa é o corpo: penetração, ovulação, germinação, expulsão, where darkened rooms recreate the experience tactically and visually. The female body is presented as a kind of ball of yarn carrying memories and experiences in Chiharu Shiota’s Infinite Memory with red threads that roll and unroll, intertwining and enveloping us.
At times, the experience becomes unsettling, as in Tania Mouraud’s work, where the environment itself acts as a repellent, and heat and sound provoke discomfort and anxiety, serving as a metaphor for the art world’s rejection of women at the time. Abstract concepts are made tangible through sculpture and composition: Marta Minujín’s psychedellic mattresses in ¡Revuélquese y viva! evoke the physical embodiment of a mind in constant motion, like in a trip, capable of creating new connections and making even the simplest things extraordinary. Pinaree Santipak’s The House Is Crumbling constructs and deconstructs a shared space, demonstrating how our actions can impact not only our own reality but also the lives of others.
Light, shadow, and reflection play a central role in transporting us to otherworldly realms. In Kimsooja’s To Breathe, iridescent light transforms the space into a dreamy environment, evoking the sensation of a lucid dream. In Nanda Vigo’s Ambiente cronotopico vivibile, neon lights create a similarly disorienting effect, blurring the boundaries between dream and nightmare. whether dreamlike or unsettling, we are drawn into another universe.
As the co-curators Andrea Lissoni and Martina Pugliese say, the exhibition brings light on a vital yet overlooked chapter in history: like Yamazaki Tsuruko did when she first presented Red (Shape of Mosquito Net) back in 1956, these women have transformed the way we experience and feel art. Today, women have achieved many rights, yet our vision is still often clouded by a sort of hopeless optimism that prevents us from seeing the inequalities that are still hidden and need to be addressed. Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists, 1950s - Now brings light to issues we often overlook and try to avoid, and reminds us that art, at its best, is a collective experience.
The exhibition Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists, 1950s - Now is on view through January 6th, 2026, at M+ museum, 38 Museum Dr, Hong Kong.
Lea Lublin - Penetración / Expulsión (del Fluvio Subtunal) 1970 - Installation view of Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s–Now, 2025 Based on original work by Lea Lublin - Photo: Lok Cheng, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Chiharu Shiota - Infinite Memory 2025 - Installation view of Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s–Now, 2025 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2025, and Chiharu Shiota - Photo: Dan Leung, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Judy Chicago - Feather Room, 1966 - Replica Haus der Kunst München, 2023, Installation view of Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s–Now, 2025 © Chicago Woodman LLC, Judy Chicago - Photo: Lok Cheng, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Aleksandra Kasuba - Spectral Passage, 1975 - Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 Adapted reconstruction for the spaces of M+, 2025 - Installation view of Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s–Now, 2025 © Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba - Photo: Dan Leung, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Marta Minujín - ¡Revuélquese y viva! 1964 - Replica Haus der Kunst München, 2023 - Installation view of Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s–Now, 2025 © Marta Minujín Photo: Lok Cheng, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Laura Grisi - Vento di Sud-Est (Wind Speed 40 Knots) 1968 - Installation view of Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s–Now, 2025 © Laura Grisi Estate - Photo: Dan Leung, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Pinaree Sanpitak - The House Is Crumbling 2017/2025 - Installation view of Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s–Now, 2025 © Pinaree Sanpitak - Photo: Lok Cheng, Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong