UNESCO EXHIBIT

March 10-25, 2009 - Celebrating Women will be exhibited at the UNESCO House, 7 place de Fontenoy, Paris, France in Rooms Miró 1 and 2. The exhibit is part of the Organization¹s International Women¹s Day (IWD) program, a month-long celebration. Read Paola's 2008 speech at UNESCO.

The exhibit will be open to the public weekdays 9:30AM to 5:00PM. Admission is free; a photo ID is required to enter the UNESCO building. More information is available at the press page.

The exhibit features six festivals from the book, Celebrating Women. These events honor women for reasons as diverse as kind-heartedness; ferocity; courageousness in the face of social injustice; or simply for being young and fancy-free.

• INDIA: Kali Puja celebrates the fierce warrior goddess Kali, who fights evil.
• SWAZILAND: The Reed Dance celebrates girls’ virginity. Twenty-five thousand maidens dance for two days to honor the Queen Mother—and to be honored by their country.
• SWEDEN: Sankta Lucia celebrates women as kind. Little girls wear candles on their heads on December 13, sing the Lucia song and serve their parents breakfast in bed.
• POLAND: Noc Świętojańska celebrates women as magical. Young girls braid garlands of wildflowers and herbs to float on the river at night; traditionally, they believed their wreath would lead them to the man they’d marry.
• BRAZIL: Festival of Boa Morte, celebrates women as political. Descendents of slave women who helped bring about abolition, convene first for Catholic, then Candomblé, ceremonies.
• MOROCCO: Moussem of Imilchil celebrates women as initiators. Once a year, Berber widows and divorcees identify and invite men to marry them.

CELEBRATING WOMEN EXHIBIT HISTORY

The first Celebrating Women exhibit was mounted in 2004 by the International Museum of Women in San Francisco. That exhibit, which was opened by Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was viewed by about forty thousand visitors over a three month period and was the first exhibit ever curated by the International Museum of Women.

CELEBRATING WOMEN EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

Curriculum materials for classroom use (Grades 2 through 7) were developed by the International Museum of Women and can be downloaded here.

BUY THE BOOK, CELEBRATING WOMEN

The hardcover book, Celebrating Women, includes 17 festivals in 15 countries and was published by powerHouse Books in 2004.

 

THE OPENING CELEBRATION VIDEOS

FEBRUARY - SEPTEMBER 2008
Field Museum Exhibit, Chicago, February 29-September 9, 2008 Almost 200,000 people saw Celebrating Women during its seven months at the Field Museum, an exhibit that opened with members of Chicago’s ethnic communities demonstrating their own rituals, music and dancing.

Sankta Lucia by The Swedish American Museum Center video by Dan Moran

Boa Morte by The Brazilian Cultural Center of Chicago video by Dan Moran