THE BIG HORMONE PARTY IS COMING!

The Big Hormone Party is a one-day gathering to explore, acknowledge, and celebrate experiences of bodily and emotional change. The (peri)menopause is not merely an individual concern, but a shared life phase that has long been marginalised in public discourse. Through workshops, conversations with specialists, and a preview film screening, we create a temporary space for exchange, mutual recognition, and collective vitality, inspired by Dress to Kill by Pauline Curnier Jardin. You are welcome to join for the full day or to take part at any moment.

Please note that the daytime programme will be conducted in Dutch, while the film screening will be in English.

PROGRAMME

14:00–16:00
THE PLAYFUL SKIN
Workshop & Parade
in collaboration with Manoeuvre Kunstenplek
and Carla Besora Barti (Later-in-Life Intimacy, Ghent University)

16:30–18:30
AFTER-WORK MENOPAUSE CAFÉ
Watch Party curated by Sara Moens (Menovista’s)
DJ set by Annelien Vermeir (AMOK)

18:30–20:00
KITCHEN STORIES
Food, encounters, and shared narratives

20:00–22:00
PREMIERE SCREENING
The M Factor 2: Before the Pause — Jacoba Atlas
Introduction and discussion led by Sara Moens (Menovista’s)

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THE PLAYFUL SKIN

Workshop & Parade
in collaboration with Manoeuvre Kunstenplek (Ghent)
and Carla Besora Barti (Ghent University / LiLI)

In this workshop, play and self-expression take centre stage. Together with the women of Manoeuvre, Carla Besora Barti explores how movement and the use of accessories can become strategies for claiming visibility and autonomy.

Women are expected to become less visible as they grow older. Ageist ideas render them invisible. But older women are here to stay and to cherish life. We celebrate women being as old as they are, and as visible as they wish to be. Around a lush table of abundance, we make accessories for one another.

The process culminates in a parade: a collective, gently subversive moment in which participants claim space on their own terms. The workshop is an invitation to be present, to become visible, and to take control of one’s own expression.

Carla Besora Barti is a doctoral researcher at Ghent University and the University of Amsterdam, affiliated with the ERC-funded research project Later-in-Life Intimacy (LiLI). Her work examines how women in mid and later life experience, seek, and shape intimacy, sensuality, and pleasure—and how these practices unsettle dominant narratives around ageing, gender, and sexuality. Working across visual and anthropological methods, she traces the unruly ways in which pleasure and intimacy emerge beyond everyday expectations and stereotypes.

Manoeuvre Kunstenplek is a Ghent-based platform for artistic practice centered on care, encounter, and collectivity. Working with diverse groups and communities, they use the body, textiles, and craft as carriers of imagination to explore social questions through accessible and playful forms.

Practical
Start: 14:00
Duration: approx. 2 hours
Location: Dress to Kill exhibition space, NW
For: Manoeuvre participants and all interested visitors
Participation is free; registration required

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AFTER-WORK Menopause Café

Hosted by Menovista’s
with a DJ set by Annelien Vermeir (AMOK)

The parade flows into an informal after-work menopause café. Against the soundscapes of Annelien Vermeir, the energy shifts from action to collective presence—a passage from doing to exchanging.

At the center, the (Peri)Meno-Wall offers a space for visitors to leave thoughts, questions, frustrations, recognitions, or moments of pleasure. Drawn from research and lived experience, the contributions invite both individual and collective reflection.

Menovista’s is a network of menopause consultants dedicated to making (peri)menopause visible, legible, and publicly discussable.

AMOK Space is a site for encounter, experimentation, and collective experience in Aalst. Through music, performance, and events, it produces temporary spaces where energy, connection, and pleasure take shape.

Practical
Start: 16:30 (following the workshop and parade)
Duration: approx. 2 hours
Location: Dress to Kill exhibition space, NW

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Kitchen Stories

Kitchen Stories is a participatory cooking and meeting project in which shared meals become a platform for storytelling, memory, and knowledge exchange. Through food, it brings together people from different backgrounds, creating a space for care, conversation, and collective presence.

Start: 18:30–20:00
Location: Café Dendy

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PREMIERE SCREENING
The M Factor 2: Before the Pause, Jacoba Atlas

The M Factor 2: Before the Pause focuses on perimenopause—the often overlooked decade preceding menopause. Through personal narratives and conversations with experts, the film exposes how women are caught between medical blind spots, social expectations, and bodily disruption.

From a teacher told her symptoms are “all in her head” to a firefighter forced to endure heavy bleeding without basic facilities, the film renders structural inequality and ignorance starkly visible—and open to discussion.

Introduction and discussion led by Sara Moens, menopause consultant and co-founder of Menovista’s. A self-described “menopause detective,” she works with women through practical guidance and personalized care strategies, aiming to support them in entering a new life phase with greater knowledge, energy, and agency.

Start: 20:00
Location: Cinema NW

Introduction & discussion with Sara Moens
Sara Moens – menopause consultant and co-founder of Menovista’s

A self-proclaimed “menopause detective,” she supports women with clear guidance and a personalised lifestyle and self-care plan. Her mission is to inform and empower women, enabling them to enter a new phase of life with more energy, insight, and enthusiasm.