The exhibition focuses on the “status of women” issue among Middle Eastern women in general, and among women in Israel, women in Palestinian society and on women that were raised in pluralist societies composed of secular, traditional and religious cultures.
Note by the curator Shirley Meshulam
“What about Women’s rights?”: this question is central in the exhibition and is especially relevant in the present era in which we are witnessing an enormous wave on women’s struggles that echoes and exposes the true conditions of their reality in every possible life sphere – in the arts, media, social networks, and in the fields of music, theater, film, but also in the judicial-, political-, and social system.
The concept and term “#METOO” that was defined, in 2006, by the Feminist activist Tarana Burke in her campaign against the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and violence against women in society, became a global movement in 2017, affecting over eighty-five nations all over the planet, including the Americas, Europe, Asia and in the Middle East. The European Parliament dealt with this issue as did the media in China and in India. This phenomenon that encouraged thousands of women to speak out became possible and imperative as a result of prevailing conditions in the mood, spirit and realities of the “new era”.
The transference of many women from reticence and acceptance to protest and from being defensive to aggressive assert, from fear and shame to willingness to resistance further highlighted their dedication to their goal to implement fully the concept of “women Rights” and the need to act without any delays for immediate changes. The concept of “Women’s Rights” related to women’s demands for basic rights and social liberties that were denied to them in the past or not accorded them presently by the society.
Simon de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) claimed that “Femininity” was a social structure and not a biological decree of fate. Judith Butler, important and influential figures in Gender and Sexual Identity studies proposed that social processes were responsible for the definitions of “Femininity” and “Maleness” in education, military, and the workplace and for our values and outlook. She defined gender identities as cultural entities. Gender is the performance of the manner that we act during a certain time and is not a strict definition of substance.
The exhibition focuses on the “status of women” issue among Middle Eastern women in general, and among women in Israel, women in Palestinian society and on women that were raised in pluralist societies composed of secular, traditional and religious cultures. The artists’ approach is both subversive and critical.
The essence of the exhibition and the concept that stand in her coordinator, reflects the women’s struggle, in the world and also in art, to treat the subject “Definition of Women’s Rights” as a base for the investigation of problems of existence, belonging to a place, society, a culture and the definition of the “self”.
Artists: MAYA ATTUON / REUT FERSTER / INBAL MENDES – FLOHR / IRIS HASSID / ALONA HARPAZ / HANNAN ABU HUSSEIN / IGOR KRUTER / DVORA MORAG / GIL NECHUSHTAN / HANNAH SHAVIV / MERAV SUDAEY / ABIR SULTAN / DANIEL TCHETCHIK / ILIA YEFIMOVICH / OSAMA ZATAR / AMEERA KASIM ZIYAN
Produced by Josef Ben Bassat and supported by מורשתנו – Наше Наследие Демократическая Хартия – Morashtenu – Our heritage, the charter for democracy.