Making Space: Celebrating Women at the University of Birmingham
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Sir David Eastwood, would like to invite students to attend a very special event to commemorate International Women’s Day on Wednesday, 8th March. The ‘Making Space’ project takes a creative response to explore issues of gender representation in higher education.
Like many of the most valued academic institutions, the University is long established and steeped in tradition – indeed this is something that many students value as an enriching part of their student experience. This heritage is visible not just in the fabric of buildings, but also in its cultural assets most notably of the portraits of mainly male academics and benefactors that adorn public spaces.
Whilst it is important that we cherish and celebrate our heritage, it is equally important that we reflect the diversity of our modern academic community, a diversity that makes a modern global university such an exciting and inspiring place to be. How do we redress this imbalance, whilst still recognising the contribution and achievements made over decades and sometimes centuries, when expectations of gender roles were very different?
It is in order to explore these challenges that the University has commissioned artist, academic, and anthropologist Liz Hingley. Liz will be creating a series of high-quality images which celebrate women at the University and which can be exhibited alongside traditional depictions of predominantly male figureheads and academics, without replacing them. By ‘Making Space’ for the new images Liz’s work will prompt us to look at our familiar surroundings in a new light and we hope that this will act as a catalyst for new activity as part of our equality strategy.
The images will be brought together for an opening exhibition on International Women’s Day in what promises to be an inspiring, exciting, and thought provoking evening.
If you would like to attend this event, please order your free ticket through the Guild of Students website. We would recommend that you do this as soon as possible because places are limited to 30 students.
The closing date for ordering tickets is Thursday 23rd February 2017. Only students with tickets will be permitted to enter the exhibition.