Day No. 1: WEAD MEMBERS and WOMEN’S ART HISTORY

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORY TRANSFORMING THE MUSEUM INTO AN EDIBLE LANDSCAPE, Wu Mali, 2008.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 1 WU MALI EDIBLE TAIPEI, Wu Mali, 2008, Taipei Biennial.Wu Mali (born 1957) is the “godmother” of Taiwan’s socially engaged art. Since the 1990s she has produced a series of highly influential projects, among which, Art as Environment—A Cultural Action at the Plum Tree Creek (jointly produced with Bamboo Curtain Studio) won the Taishin Arts Award in 2013, the most prestigious art prize in Taiwan. Parallel to her practice, she led the translation of two important texts, Suzanne Lacy’s Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art and Grant Kester’s Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, into Chinese. In 2007, she organized the landmark conference “Art and Public Sphere: Working in Community”—and later edited a volume of the same title—to unite local practitioners, theorists, and officials. She is a dedicated teacher, and now heads the Graduate Institute of Interdisciplinary Art at National Kaohsiung Normal University. Recently she has also been active in building regional connections; in 2014 she curated a large exhibition titled Art as Social Interaction, showcasing socially engaged projects of 30 artists and groups from Taiwan and Hong Kong. – Zheng Bo

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Day No. 2: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORYZAPATOS, Elina Chauvet, Jose Garcia, Juarez Chihuahua, Mexico, 2009.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 2 ELINA CHAUVET ZAPATOS, Elina Chauvet, Jose Garcia, Juarez Chihuahua, Mexico, 2009.RED SHOES IS PERSONALLY AND POLITICALLY a most important project for me.  I began working on it in 2009 in Ciudad Juarez, my native city. It grew out of an earlier project in community art workshops.The Ciudad Juarez city government, along with state and federal governments, awarded grants for artists to give courses in communities with vulnerable people in summer 2010. My project was selected which consisted of two workshops for children and young people to make art from recycled objects. In the first workshop I worked with young children and their mothers who painted and assembled a multitude of small objects, all made from waste. Moms learned to make jewelry. For the second workshop I worked with young graffiti artists, asking them to step into sculpture and to paint in three dimensions. The idea was immediately greeted with enthusiasm. The result is a metal sculpture made by teens with a new artists’ group called Indian Brook.While there, I saw firsthand that the violence in Ciudad Juarez had escalated out of control. The military came to town bringing more violence. In my visits downtown I was alarmed to see how many posters for missing girls were stuck to the telephone poles. That’s when I realized that the women in Juarez were dying or disappearing. Then and there I began to ask questions but did not find answers. Stories of women went underreported. The settling of accounts among gangs was treated with more importance; that was what made headlines in the newspapers. Plus, a lot of my past artwork speaks of domestic violence. This is an issue I know. That’s how my idea for the RED SHOES project was born. – excerpt from Elina Chauvet Interview by Joyce Janvier

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Day No. 3: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORYLesson on Harriet Tubman by Janell Hobson, directed by Yan Dan Wong.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 3 JANELL HOBSON scholar, writer, educator, critic Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture , Janelle Hobson, 2nd edition 2018.Janell Hobson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany. She joined the core faculty shortly after receiving her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies at Emory University. Hobson has since devoted her research, teaching, and service to multiracial and transnational feminist issues in the discipline. Hobson is the author of Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2005, second edition, 2018) and Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender (SUNY Press, 2012). She has also edited the volume Are All the Women Still White? Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms (SUNY Press, 2016). She is a contributing writer to Ms. Magazine and its blog, as well as other online pages, including the African American Intellectual History blog and The Feminist Wire. She also guest edited special volumes on Harriet Tubman and slavery in popular culture. She is currently writing a book on the intersections of black women’s histories and popular culture. Overall, Hobson uses a transnational lens to highlight women’s iconography and experiences in the African Diaspora. Apart from teaching diverse courses on intersections of race, class, gender, media, popular culture, and feminist theory, Hobson engages in digital projects with her students. – University of Albany website.

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Day No. 4: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORYSIMULATED SACRED GROVE, (3rd Space Forest) Redwood and Banyan Trees, 2014.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 5 TRENA NOVAL COLLECTIVE CANVAS (New World Landscape), 3rd Space Lab Collective Member, 2014.Trena Noval’s interdisciplinary work crosses experience design, social practice, science, digital media, community engagement and food adventures. At the heart of her work is the investigation of cultural and natural ecosystems, experiences of everyday life, radical hospitality and research as an art platform. Over the last decade, collaboration has become an important part of her work process. Currently she has been exploring the role of collective thinking and actions in a variety of contexts with others, forming communities of mutual practice. In 2012, Noval and Bangalore artist Lalitha Shankar founded 3rd Space Lab Collective, whose mission is to establish a global commons exploring Bangalore India, and the San Francisco Bay Area. As a cultural exchange collective with artists from the Bay Area and Bangalore, India, 3rd Space Lab is interested in forming a new landscape of merged cultural thinking and identity through developing a mutual art practice. COLLECTIVE CANVAS (New World Landscape), 3rd Space Lab Collective Member Shamala, 2014.

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Day No. 5: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORY SOLAR TIDE FLATS, digital photocollage, Beverly Naidus, 2017.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 5 BEVERLY NAIDUS EXTREME MAKEOVER WORKSHOP, 350 Tacoma Storefront, Beverly Naidus, 2017.EXTREME MAKEOVER: Reimagining the Port of Tacoma Free of Fossil Fuels 2018 to the present.This community-based art project reimagines the Port of Tacoma, an industrial port built on tribal land in violation of the Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854. The soil and water been contaminated by years of dumping and now hosts several designated superfund sites. In recent years, the community has been fighting the installation of new and dangerous fossil fuel projects in the Port and Extreme Makeover arose out of that resistance. Extreme Makeover has been hosting art workshops (most recently with the support of Tacoma’s 350.org) to engage the public in a reconstructive visioning process. BIOGRAPHYBeverly Naidus’s art life has straddled the socially engaged margins of the art world, artful activism collaborations, and community-based art projects. Much of her work deals with ecological and social issues that have adversely affected her and those around her. She often works with others to develop strategies that might heal those challenges. Naidus has taught art as a subversive activity at NYC museums, the Institute for Social Ecology, California State University, Long Beach where she had tenure, Goddard College, Hampshire College and Carleton College. She’s been a tenured member of the UW Tacoma faculty for the past 16 + years where she’s shaped an innovative, interdisciplinary studio arts curriculum in art for social change and healing. She is the author of Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame (a book that is shifting studio arts curriculum around the world) and has written & published many essays on eco-art and social practice as well as a few works of speculative fiction. She recently published a limited-edition artist’s book, Not Just Words: A 30-Year Exhortation to Love & Resistance. Above text from http://faculty.washington.edu/bnaidus/index.html.

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Day No. 6: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORY NO REFUGE, NO SANCTUARY, Carol Lambert, 2016.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 6 CAROL LAMBERT EQUILIBRIUM, Carol Lambert, 2018.Using intaglio printmaking, I show women relying on their physicality, strength, courage, and dignity to confront absurd or dangerous circumstances. These include physical, emotional, and environmental threats. My protagonists, though vulnerable and not always heroic, are self-possessed and aware. I intend to engage viewers’ curiosity and invite identification, not only with the characters, but with the visceral effects of their situations. I draw on familiar elements of popular and historic genres. Sometimes genteel on the surface, my images address women’s struggles, identity, development, coping, and determination. I often employ satire and/or visual humor. I am inspired by feminism, surrealism, classical mythology, and early 20th century comics. – Carol Lambert

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Day No. 7: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORY THEY SAY BEAUTIFUL LAND LIES ELSEWHERE, Sheila Novak.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 7 SHEILA NOVAK KINDRED STRANGER, bronze, oak, Sheila Novak. My artwork is focused on notions of place as defined by environment, gender and community. I examine the intricate notions of earth as mother and the feminine aspects of landscape. My work is sparked by a creative response to found objects and the presentation with visual poetry. I examine the power of the land through multi-media sculptures and installations, allowing concept to dictate medium. I am inspired by natural objects and frequently incorporate them u them in my work alongside steel, wood and cast metals. Integrating such diverse materials allows me to approach the political, while uplifting the power of land and the natural feminine logic of landscape.

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Magi Amma- Day No. 8: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORY THE GLASS CEILING, Chair Series, Magi Amma.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 8 MAGI AMMA THE SCREAM, Chair Series, Magi Amma.I create mixed-media sculpture using recycled materials, ceramic figures and objects from nature. I use symbols such as wings, wheels, nests, ladders, cages and confined female figures as metaphors of the questionable state of the social and financial equality of women.I have experience in sculpture, bronze casting, ceramics and computer science including posts as an art director at Sun Microsystems and Apple Computer.I am an activist who not only has created such political artwork as the Coup d’Etat Coloring Book, but has also served as President of the National Woman’s Caucus for Art. -Magi Amma

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Day No. 9: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORY 67 SITES, Navjot Altaf, Bangalore, India, 2001.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 9 NAVJOT ALTAF NALPAR structure, Navjot Altaf, 2005. Navjot Altaf is an accomplished painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker and installation artist; she has travelled extensively across the world, empowering people through these mediums. Inspired by Marxist ideologies, she constantly pushed the boundaries of material and genre to express her social concerns. Both in their process of creation and in their subject, her sculptural work addresses issues of social injustice and religious violence in India through a unique feminine perspective. In the seventies, she was also associated with the Progressive Youth Movement. Throughout her career, Navjot contextualises memory, history and culture, gender and sexuality through her own experiences and addresses social, political and artistic issues. Through her work we see a sense of social commitment and a need to interrogate existing power structures and expose the injustice practiced against weaker sections of society. “My work has re-tracked the familiar terrain of questioning various frameworks of social injustice and violence, transmuting my concerns to the intimate, often hidden private lives of women. They are sculptures that speak, that address the burning questions of the inequalities that exist in society, especially with relation to the female of the species.” Her interaction and experimental works with tribal artists from Bastar, Madhya Pradesh lasted over two decades. She brings her experience to her craft, showing and travelling extensively and being exposed to contemporary art practices around the world. Bio from http://jnaf.org/artist/navjot-altaf/

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609

Day No. 10: WEAD Members and Women’s Art History

COMMEMORATING THE IMPORTANCE OF  WEAD MEMBERS AND WOMEN’S ART HISTORYOASIS, large Outdoor installation – plastic bags, Claudia Borgna.March is U.S. Women’s History Month.  WEAD joins with The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate and encourage the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. These goals mirror WEAD’s global mission statement:  to educate others, to promote, network and support all women artists working with critical issues of eco and social justice. Beyond March WEAD will continue to mark 2020 as Women’s Year—especially noting the U.S. 100th anniversary of achieving Women right to vote.  Let’s celebrate 2020 as Women’s Decade, and beyond, Women’s Century.  The future is ours to shape, but the historical work that has come before functions as our foundation.  To properly commemorate our past, present and future histories, WEAD here spotlights 10 members’ work, one per day for the next 10 days.ARTIST NO. 10 CLAUDIA BORGNA THE POISE OF THE TIDES,  A BRIEF MOMENT OF TRUCE, Large outdoor installation – plastic bags, Claudia Borgna. Claudia Borgna has been exhibiting internationally and has attended fellowship residencies in the USA, Canada and Europe. She is the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Grant, the Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner Grant, the Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award and the Pritzker Foundation Endowed Fellowship Award. Currently attending the Public Practice MFA programme at OTIS, Claudia has been focusing on the political and social functions of art making while exploring installation, performance and video art. Her work entails the investigation of an ongoing observation and questioning of how the “plastic” and the natural realms interact with one another and thereby come to create new ephemeral orders.

Copyright © 2020, WEAD All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 4227 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94609