Ladies Lounge or Glinda’s Bubble of Hope
Image credit: KIRSHA KAECHELE, Ladies Lounge, 2020-ongoing. Photo: Jesse Hunniford
Courtesy the artist and Museum of Old and New Art, Nipaluna/Hobart
As I left my first visit to the Ladies Lounge, I passed a couple in their 70s. The man was very emotional, insisting that he wouldn’t wait for her to go in, so they had to leave. She gently stroked his ego, tried to reason with him like a mother to a sulking child: “Well, how about we go ask?” They left without either of them experiencing Ladies Lounge, and gifted me a taste of why we need this space.
Does this moment capture the power of Ladies Lounge? Not even close. That man’s tantrum is merely a sweet treat that brought me joy and anger. The truth lies deeper; in the boundaries it draws and the feelings it stirs for those privileged enough to step beyond the emerald curtain.
At first glance, it's easy to dismiss the lounge as a gaudy fantasy. A shrine to glimmering excess with priceless art, champagne towers and sexy men. But the material extravagance is a smokescreen. They are not the point; they are tools in a master plan.
The real work is happening just below the surface. Through satire and extravagance, Ladies Lounge tricks the body into remembering or, for some, learning what safety feels like. In a world where women are trained to scan, assess, shrink, this glittering bubble is a respite. It's ridiculous and over the top, yet it’s hopeful. It’s a glimpse into an alternate reality: not a utopia, but a world in which we might actually relax.
That sense of ease doesn’t come from softness alone, but the structure of the space. This isn’t achieved through aggression. It’s a boundary. A line drawn. A space held. One informed by millennia of matriarchal survival, systems of care and knowledge that have sustained cultures, communities, and homes for generations. Ladies Lounge does what women and queer people have done forever: make a sanctuary in a hostile world.
You want to know what’s inside Ladies Lounge?
That’s not my place to say. But I will tell you why it’s one of the most important works I’ve encountered. It’s about the feelings that surfaced in me, the ones I’ve had to suppress just to function and find success in this world. The grief of what could’ve been, if the world had ever felt truly safe. The mourning for the version of myself I might’ve become. The anger that it still isn’t safe and the strength of naming that anger.
We’ve seen generations of artists, thinkers, and protestors who’ve had to reactive and aggressive forms to create change. With feminist groups such as the Guerrilla Girls and Pussy Riot, art as resistance has long been rooted in confrontation. Through these remarkable practices, we are now in a world that has allowed Kirsha Kaechele to propose a new possibility: what if, instead, we envisioned a future that feels good? What if we created not only critique but also sanctuary?
Image credit: KIRSHA KAECHELE, Ladies Lounge, 2020-ongoing Photo: Jesse Hunniford
Courtesy the artist and Museum of Old and New Art, Nipaluna/Hobart
This isn’t a rejection of protest, but a re-routing of power. A reclaiming of space. It’s not about replacing patriarchy with its mirror image or feeding into late-stage capitalist fantasies of female excess. It's about reintroducing the circle: knowledge-sharing, mutual care, soft boundaries, joy. An undoing of scarcity. A dismantling of shame.
When I stepped into Ladies Lounge, I felt the armour I wear in the outside world peel away. Usually, I observe spaces with a critical lens. I hold back. I perform. But here, I was allowed to simply be. I struck up conversations with strangers. I danced. I didn’t worry about seeming “too much” or not enough. I didn’t hide behind the protective versions of myself I’ve spent years perfecting.
I wasn’t there to impress. I wasn’t there to be consumed. I was there to expand. Every five minutes, another layer softened. The performances didn’t strive for perfection. They elevated the energy in the room. They allowed joy to stretch outward, spilling into laughter, dissolving the edges of my self-protection.
That’s the magic trick: what feels like satire is actually a deep recalibration. The sparkle masks a radical premise. It doesn’t just parody the world as it is; it models what it could be.
Ladies Lounge is not a joke. It’s a portal.
And for a moment, just long enough to feel it in the body, it’s real. And will remain as the benchmark of what the world could be.
The Ladies Lounge recently staged its debut pop-up at BLEACH* Festival at HOTA on the Gold Coast, running from 31 July to 10 August 2025.
