Michael Bai ‘20:
In honor of Women’s History Month, the Install-It club is hosting For Women, By Women, Plus One, a pop-up show in the Crawford Campus Center Gallery. The pop-up features several works of art created by prominent female artists in the art world.
The curators of Install-It believe that these works of art reflect female strength and empowerment. Annie Rau ‘19, co-curator of Install-It, says, “March is Women’s History Month, so the pop-up is all famous portraits or work by influential women and we also have one male artist, so the title of our show is For Women, By Women, Plus One. They are either abstract or self-portraits.” She continues, “It’s all about influential women in history and the power that they held. We think that by showing these ten images, it would be a really good reflection of [that].” Theo Vadot ‘19, another co-curator of the gallery, elaborates, “A lot of them are empowering portraits. It’s about women empowerment. It’s important because a lot of female artists weren’t able to be successful as artists.” Hilary Hutchison, Upper School Art teacher and Faculty Advisor of Install-It, says, “Some of the gallery’s artists reflect the struggle of being able to be educated the same as male artists during the time.”
Install-It also believes that the pop-up will have a meaningful impact on the Episcopal community. Rau says, “I think that it’s important, because it is Women’s History Month, for people to have the option to go learn more about influential women in history, the diversity of women, their motivations and the different paths that they took. I think that’s important for students to see. It’s not something that you learn about in history all the time.” Vadot continues, “I think it will be a positive impact because with Women’s History Month, we do all types of things, and I think this is a way to display the belief that women should be equal to men.”
Hutchison explains the preparations of the pop-up show: “We’re printing large posters of [the artwork] and they’re going to be hanging in the gallery. Each student is writing brief biographical information about the artist and why they felt like it’s an engaging portrait. Some of the students who are writing the blurbs are from Install-It, but others are students in my class who are genuinely interested in art. It’s more of a student-driven event.” She continues, “It’s just a quick two-week show, like the Polka-Dot show we did last year where it’s just a short pop-up. It’s a short window in March.”