Both artists are born and raised in Vila Real, Portugal. A small city in the interior north. Both moved away from their city at the age of 18 when starting their university studies. Both have been living abroad for years in different countries. Inês in now in Amsterdam, Ágata is now in Berlin.

The subject of this project came up naturally when they started talking about a collab together. From their experience living abroad they became more aware of the differences the word feminism has and the way our societies diverse on raising boys and girls.

Feminist is frequently seen as extremist when in reality is basically a person, man or woman, who believes in gender equality. 

I’m A Woman And I Don’t Like Pink

"A few years ago I read an article about Kirsty Mackay, a photographer and mother of a young girl, that for 9 months decided to explore the prevalence of pink in girls toys and clothing. She pointed out that although we (society) came a long way in terms of gender equality since the 70’s, back then these elements were more neutral, there wasn’t this prevalence of pink as we see today. 

She doesn’t have anything against the colour pink. Neither do I. But she noticed how society imposes this colour choice in a way that infantilizes the female gender, making it hard to have an alternative and how that reinforces old-fashioned gender stereotypes. The same doesn’t happen to boys and the colour blue.

(...)

I never liked PINK. My first pink memory was my own room. I don’t remember asking for anything but everything was PINK, as if I was living inside "My Little Poney" or "Care Bears", a dreamy, but yet too real, pink dream. Pink curtains, pink duvet, pink ruffles around the bed, pink frames on the walls and all that jazz! 

A few years passed and I still didn't like pink. I didn’t relate with what it represented, too soft, too "girly", too sweet. I simply didn’t identify with the colour or the association behind it.

According to my parents, I used to question too much and grew up too fast. “You think too much”, they used to say, or would just stare at me, wondering how would I come out with those questions. In my brain, it was pretty simple. I just needed a logic answer! If someone tells me pink is for girls and blue is for boys, there must be a reason for that, right? The most obvious question is WHY? Why do I have to like pink? What about the other colours? Why pink and not yellow? How do you force someone to like something?"

(...)

“It was only when I read about Kirsty’s project that all started to make sense! It wasn’t the colour itself that I didn’t like. It wasn’t a matter of hue or saturation. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. Pink would still be pink if we would call it something else. I never liked it because I was being forced to embrace that colour and everything that comes with it because… I’m a woman!”

— Inês Leite