Human Rights - especially women

I recently visited the temporary exhibit: Women Hold Up Half the Sky at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

View of ceiling - uplifting notes from museum visitors fill the sky for the women around the world.

Change is Possible - a positive endorsement.

While the exhibit was not at all what I expected from the title; I do what to say that a visit to this exhibit is worthwhile. I find it interesting that to educate the public about the human rights of women  around the world we may have to do more exhibits like this one and put the conversation into the museum setting.

Overall Exhibit View. Complex and beautiful - like women everywhere.

Trafficking

Slavery is still happening - even in Los Angeles

Overcoming Violence

Maternal Health

The topic of this exhibit is a bit unsettling. I found myself asking - is a museum the best place to put the message about human rights of women into the public sphere? What kind of museums would be willing to take this exhibit (or a similar one) and re-install it somewhere else in America or even in another county?

Make-a-mark wall.

The Skirball exhibit designers inserted many varied ways to allow visitors a way to take some sort of step towards action. All touching and relevant, but is it enough?

"butterfly" notes to hang in exhibit - audience as participant

Preziosi and Farago in Art Is Not What You Think It Is succinctly discuss the traditional role of museum exhibits: "A museum is fundamentally a mode of staging and making palpable preferred relationships while endeavoring to manage how these are to be received. Things are framed, contained, and stage-managed so that their preferred legibility may be palpably visible."

View of "butterflies"

A promise to be an advocate. And a chance to make your "mark on the wall." as seen behind the table.

Cards to make the promise.

Another way to take action.

Once a visitor decides on an action to take they may leave their message with the exhibit.

I give Skirball much credit for taking a difficult topic and putting information out in public in as straight forward as possible manner.  There was images, words, video, sound, lights and a museum docent.

The video screen had three projections.

This is the back of one of the video set-ups. I found it interesting.

While I did not learn anything new from the exhibit, I was pleased that other visitors were shocked and actively engaging in questions with our docent. Please consider a visit to see the exhibit for your self - it closes on May 20, 2012 - make sure to take the time to visit with a museum docent, they add antidotes that help to enliven the experience.

Women line up to tell their story.