The Girl Museum has been operating as a virtual museum for the last 10 years and has grown to be a world-class producer of exhibitions, collaborative projects, podcasts, and other media that document, preserve, and advocate for girls’ unique culture and rights around the world. The museum is led by an all-volunteer Senior Staff and provides numerous internship and volunteer opportunities.
Up until now the museum has been financed through infrequent fundraisers and one-time donations. This has been fine for the last 10 years, but now the museum decided to create a sustainable plan for the future: Girl Museum Sisterhood. Find out more about the program here.
On 5 May 2018 the Museum Frauenkultur Regional-International in Fürth, Germany has opened the exhibition ‘Wie weiblich ist die Stadt?’ (How feminine is the city?).
Get a glimpse at the exhibition opening here:
Recently the Anno Museum in Norway has released an anthology with an interesting article written by Mona Holm from the Women’s Museum Norway. It contains an analysis of the gender equality in Norwegian museums. With her kind permission we publish the abstract of her article here in English:
Women and Men on Display, Anno 2017
Mona Holm
Since museums are institutions producing meaning, and since visitors tend to believe that what they see in an exhibition is a true picture of the world and the past, it is significant to question the assertions presented and who is included in the exhibition universes.
This paper discusses the representation of women and men in contemporary museum exhibitions in Hedmark County. The study uses the first research on gender balance in Norwegian museum displays, dating from 1992, as its starting point. Presuming that there must have been a considerable improvement in a country known as a pioneer of gender equality, three contemporary exhibitions are analysed. The research material is discussed with the support of museology and feminist theory.
The findings might be surprising. Apparently, there has been little improvement since 1992. The analyses show that men are still presented as the naturalized representatives of the human being, and women are given much less value and space in the exhibitions. Some possible causes for this slow development are then discussed; one being that the gender gap might be explained by a theory gap between University and Museum professionals.
The paradigm shift within the Academic fields of Women’s History (now: Women’s and Gender History) and Women’s Studies (now: Gender Studies) from its initial years – when the main concept was to make women’s life and work more visible, and into the exploration of various aspects of gender, has led to an increasingly advanced theorization. This has created a paradoxical situation: A better knowledge of new gender theory could facilitate more democratic and gender-balanced exhibitions, but at the same time the theories are difficult to access and can make feminist-oriented museum professionals feel outdated in their own approaches – and lead them to believe that it is hard to find support for their work in gender studies theories.
Anyway, it seems clear that there is a continuous need of making women visible in museum exhibitions – and that the original aim of creating visibility is a good starting point for any museum professional even today, independently of their level of knowledge of feminist and gender theory.
The book is written in Norwegian and can be found here.
The Antalya Women Museum in Turkey will promote the history, archeology, aesthetics of Antalya with “The Exhibition on the Hairstyles of Women in Ancient Age” project”. Twenty replicas of women’s sculptures from the Ancient Age will be displayed with real hair. MD Hair Salon in Antalya will three-dimensionally implement real hair on the heads of the 20 replicas of ancient women’s statues with their then-hair styles in the Antalya Archeology Museum and Side Museum for the project. Prof. Dr. Havva İşkan Işık, a member of the Antalya Women Museum Advisory board and Academic Member of Department of Archeology of Akdeniz University will act as the curator of the project.
Yeliz Gül Ege, ATAV Chairwoman noted that
Our goal in realizing this project is to tell how Antalya has been hosting an important series of civilizations from ancient times to the present day, and the importance of women in these civilizations.
The project is organized by Antalya Women Museum under Antalya Promotion Foundation.
The Women’s Museum Berlin is inviting to two new exhibitions to each of which will be published a catalogue.
11 July 2018 – 31 August 2018
6. Heim_Spiel
Painting | Installation | Photography | Video
In Lichtenberg living or working artists were invited to deal with the term “home” in a site-related, but also critical in the broad sense. The exhibition shows nine selected artistic positions. A cooperation of the Frauenmuseum Berlin e.V. and the rk- Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst.
Painting, photography, video, graphics and installation by the artists living or working in Lichtenberg, Ruth Biller, Liat Grayver, Elisa Haug, Olivia Martin Moore, Michaela Nasoetion, Christine Stark, Anja Teske, Anita Stöhr Weber and Maria Vedder. The title Heim_Spiel emphasizes the site-relatedness of the exhibition, in which the artists deal with home between prefabricated buildings, Late Ice and cacti.
A catalogue will be published to accompany the exhibition. Supported by the Municipal Galleries Exhibition Fund of the Senate Department of Culture and Europe.
Opening on Friday, 13 July at 20:00
Pionierpflanzen und weiterer Wildwuchs
17 artists of the Women’s Museum Berlin are taking part in this exhibition.
More information in German:
Continue reading
Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions (AWARE) in Paris is organizing in partnership with la Réunion des Musées Métropolitains Rouen-Normandie (RMM) and l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA):
10. October 2018
L’Argument de Rouen 2018 : Think / build emancipation. The emerging question of gender in museums
This multidisciplinary meeting, open to all, will be held in the framework of “L’Argument de Rouen”. It invites the public to question the ability of museums to be in touch with the societal challenges of our time. Through round tables and discussions with personalities from various disciplines, “L’Argument de Rouen” aims to question the link between museums, society and history of art, allowing this discipline to open to questions from other horizons.
The theme for L’Argument 2018 is :
“Think / build emancipation. The emerging question of gender in museums”.
The National Women’s History Exhibition Hall (NWHEH) is the only museum under the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family. This is one of the important achievements of the Korean women’s movement. It opened on December 9, 2002 in the Women’s Plaza in Daebang-dong, Seoul with the aim to shed light on the role of women in Korean history. The Ministry of Gender Equality & Family wanted to use it as a space for gender equality education, but the Ministry did not have a long-term plan for the Korean women’s history museum. According to the contract between Seoul city and the government, the NWHEH had leased the space in the Women’s Plaza for free for 10 years. Continue reading
Mary Cassatt, Petite fille dans un fauteuil bleu, vers 1877-1878, huile sur toile, 89,5 x 129,8 cm, Inv. 1983.1.18, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. And Mrs. Paul Mellon © Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
Archives of Women Artists Research and Exhibition (AWARE) is restoring the presence of 20th-century women artists in the history of art.
In association with a cultural institution, AWARE organises monthly guided tours by museum curators or art historians to reveal the works of women artists in their collections and exhibitions.
Subject to availability, the tours are free of charge and open to everyone by reservation.
The next visit will be on Sunday, 8th July 2018 in the exhibition “Mary Cassatt, une impressionniste américaine à Paris”. Continue reading
