Tag: #women

Museums as Cultural Hubs: The future of tradition

Leave a comment

ICOM selects each year for International Museum Day a theme that is at the heart of the concerns of society.

“Museums as Cultural Hubs: The future of tradition”

The role of museums in society is changing. Museums keep reinventing themselves in their quest for becoming more interactive, audience focused, community oriented, flexible, adaptable and mobile. They have become cultural hubs functioning as platforms where creativity combines with knowledge and where visitors can also co-create, share and interact.

While preserving their primary missions – collecting, conservation, communication, research, exhibition – museums have transformed their practices to remain closer to the communities they serve. Today they look for innovative ways to tackle contemporary social issues and conflict. By acting locally, museums can also advocate and mitigate global problems, striving to meet the challenges of today’s society proactively. As institutions at the heart of society, museums have the power to establish dialogue between cultures, to build bridges for a peaceful world and to define a sustainable future.

As museums increasingly grow into their roles as cultural hubs, they are also finding new ways to honour their collections, their histories and their legacies, creating traditions that will have new meaning for future generations and relevance for an increasingly diverse contemporary audience at a global level. This transformation, which will have a profound impact on museum theory and practice, also forces us to rethink the value of museums and to question the ethical boundaries that define the very nature of our work as museum professionals.

At once a focal point for the community and an integral part of a global network, museums offer a platform for translating local communities’ needs and views into a global context.

ICOM is now collecting information to create a college and promote it on IMD 2019: Museums as Cultural Hubs from Women’s perspectives.

If you are interested in participating, please send us your proposal by 7 May 2019 to info@iawm.international with the following information:

1) Title of your activity, or your current exhibition (in English);

2) 1 line of description (max. 15 words);

3) Photo.

Source

Textiles in Art History, a gendered issue

Leave a comment

On the occasion of Anni Albers exhibition at Tate Modern, Amber Butchart wrote a very interesting article for Frieze on how textile history has been separated from Art History and Fine Art because it has been always a women´s work.

The artificial divide that exists between fine art and textiles (or applied/decorative arts, or craft) is a gendered issue. ‘Textiles have always suffered as an art media because of their association with domesticity and femininity,’ says Hannah Lamb of The 62 Group of Textile Artists, an artist-led pressure group that has been promoting textiles as a fine art for nearly 60 years.

This opinion article share important foundations in which I support this research and how political stitching as other creative manifestations have been dismissed from Art History.

Indeed, me as student of Art History, I was never told about Anni Albers contribution to the Bauhaus. And the review of textile art was almost avoided during the whole university programme.

Read it here and share your thoughts

Margaret & the art of Ndebele women

Leave a comment

When a woman meets a group of women, all of them creative, only good things can result from this experience.

It´s the case of the photographer Margaret Courtney-Clarke and her photo documentary about the art of Ndebele women.

Based in West Africa, these women use vernacular art to enhance traditional architecture by painting them by hand using linear elements and “traditional design concepts borrowed from their ancestors“.

Captura de pantalla 2018-05-23 a las 7.30.58

For Margaret Courtney-Clarke, the objective of African Canva work is:

My objective in this work is to document an extraordinary art form – vernacular art and architecture in West Africa – that is not transportable and therefore not seen in museums around the world. It is an attempt to capture the unseen Africa, a glimpse into the homes and into the spirit of very proud and dignified peoples. In much the same way as I photographed the art of Ndebele women, I have drawn on my personal affinity for the art itself, for methods, design and form, rather than the socio-anthropological or political realities of a people or continent in dilemma. These images portray a unique tradition of Africa, a celebration of an indigenous rural culture in which the women are the artists and the home her canvas. Margaret Courtney-Clarke, 1990

Watch the pictures here.

Intangible Cultural Heritage & Gender

Leave a comment

Find here a very interesting document on Intangible Cultural Heritage and Gender published by UNESCO.

In the publication, gender disparities and women´s role in intangible cultural heritage transmission are raised from a very interesting perspective. Recognising inequality suffered by women but at the same time, enhancing the value of cultural heritage contribution to women´s role in society.

A must read you need to complement with UNESCO Gender Equality. Heritage and Creativity report.