Voa Pombinha

Porto, Portugal - November 2017

We had the best time working with Fili Papinho, a Portuguese embroidery artist, to create this drawing in the city of Porto, Portugal. While brainstorming over coffee together, a lightbulb went off when she came up with the phrase and design. She shares her story below:

“’Voa, pombinha’ in Portuguese translates to ‘Fly, little dove’ in English. A pombinha is a small version of a ‘pomba’ or female pigeon in English. However, in our dictionaries, ‘pomba’ also translates to the ‘prude parts of a woman’. And little girls are taught that their vulva is their pombinha. It’s absurd and contradictory if we consider Portugal being a Catholic country and the dove being an important symbol of peace and purity.

For me, personally I grew up using this word to describe my vulva, but not with the negative connotation. I thought about all the the birds at the square, and when I found the dictionary page online, I knew we had to use the idea of the doves.

So we made this clit with wings! And wrote a positive message paired with it. I thought it would be a nice simple game with words that would get people’s attention - and it worked! One woman approached us, she was alone, and stopped and was curious to know what we were drawing. After a rough explanation, she immediately understood the cute part of this word play, and smiled!

With the phrase “Voa, pombinha I wanted to send a message of liberation. It is still taboo to talk about this topic. But I would use the word ‘pombinha’ to address the subject that shouldn’t be mentioned… when in fact this animal can fly! And that is a symbol of freedom. All this came together for me when I was challenged to draw a clitoris in Porto that was meaningful to me.”