To celebrate the upcoming International Women’s Day, Christine Wertheim, chair of the MFA Writing Program at CalArts, and Nancy Buchanan, a faculty member of CalArts’ School of Film/Video, have organized the symposium Citizen Divas: Women, Art and Social Justice, which will be held tomorrow (March 6) at MOCA in Los Angeles.
The day-long event seeks to address the marginalization of women’s lives–in issues such as violence, unequal pay for equal work and social justice. Wertheim and Buchanan, who teach a joint class on women and culture at CalArts, have invited several guest speakers who use art and activism to speak out and give voice to the voiceless throughout the world.
Opening the program is LA-based artist Andrea Bowers, whose work focuses primarily on direct action and nonviolent civil disobedience enacted though the lives of women. Other participants are filmmaker Lourdes Portillo, who’ll discuss her film Senorita Extraviada (see clip posted above); artist Claudia Bernardi; author, art historian and cultural theorist Andrea Liss and KPFK radio host Margaret Prescod. In addition to the main program, there will be other presentations by CalArts students throughout the afternoon.
Citizen Divas: Women, Art and Social Justice
Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Auditorium
250 South Grand Ave., Los Angeles
Saturday, March 6 from noon-5 pm
A more detailed schedule follows:
12-12:30 – Introduction by artist Andrea Bowers
12:30- 2:30 pm – Lourdes Portillo will discuss the making of her film, Senorita Extraviada, Missing Young Woman, a documentary examining the mystery of the hundreds of young women murdered in Juarez, Mexico.
+ Claudia Bernardi will talk about a collaborative mural, Tapestry of History, which she organized with Guatemalan survivors of the massacres that took place during the long attacks on indigenous villagers. These women came from Chajul, Nebaj, Chimaltenango, Ixil, Ixcan and Rabinal to share their stories.
3-5 pm – Andrea Liss, Art Historian/Cultural Theorist and author of Feminist Art and the Maternal will discuss the radical mother-artists featured in her book.
+ Activist Margaret Prescod will discuss the work of grassroots women in her presentation, Women, Haiti and the Struggle for Democracy.
There will be additional short presentations by the organizers.
More information on International Women’s Day (Monday, March 8th)