El Tendedero/The Clothesline Project, an installation by Mónica Mayer in which women were invited to vent their frustrations about their city on a piece of pink paper. Credit: Corderokaren via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
Society USAMuseum Campaigns for Female Artists, Wants More Pieces by Women on Display
A museum in Washington, D.C., USA celebrates Women’s History Month every March by promoting female artists with the help of social media, in a bid to end gender inequity and inequality in the arts.
A study has found that merely thirteen percent of women artists appear in the permanent collections of prominent American museums, even though women make up almost half of the visual artists in the U.S. To fight back, the National Museum of Women in the Arts has been running its #5WomenArtists campaign every March since 2016. According to Hyperallergic, this year has brought together 272 museums, galleries and other art spaces contributing to the campaign.
Ashara Ekundayo, a dealer based in California, says she hopes the hashtag campaign inspires people to “turn [their] gaze inward”, adding, “The work that women create, and the institutions we build and steward, are containers for celebration and ceremony.”
The campaign this year focuses on artworks that raise awareness on climate change, racial justice and LGBTQ+ rights.
