From Emancipation to Participation

• Date: 21 December
• Location: Centrale Bibliotheek (4e verdieping)

Exhibition Opening:

5 March

Walk-in Time: 19:30

Start of Official Program: 20:00

Ongoing Exhibition:

5 March to 26 April

Photo Exhibition in Celebration of International Women's Day

For decades, women have been speaking out, leading to many positive improvements. International Women's Day on March 8, however, remains an annual reminder of continued inequality. Despite the strides that have been made, there are still many challenges to gender equality worldwide.

This exhibition focuses on photographs taken by activist photographer Mieke Schlaman (1946 - 2023). For more than forty years, Mieke tirelessly captured women during all feminist waves; from protests to gatherings, from educations to daily activities. Always with the goal of making the invisible woman visible. "The women's cause is in my DNA. We are more than half the world's population and we matter. I want women to be taken seriously."

Even though Mieke Schlaman's photographs sometimes go forty years back in time, that does not make them any less actual. Photographer and writer Clara Sharell (b. 1999) reacts and reflects on the images, allowing the past, present and future to correspond with each other.

The title From Emancipation to Participation comes from the statement Mieke made on the occasion of her 2019 exhibition in de Tweede Kamer. "In the thirty years that this exhibition covers, a lot has changed for the better. But we are not there yet, because a lot is also disappearing again. Emancipation is no longer called emancipation; it is now participation. It is important to rethink emancipation. There must be a focus on diversity and solidarity. You don't achieve that by sitting with your arms crossed, but by looking: what can we do for each other? Emancipation is not one thing. It plays out on many different levels, such as living, working or culture."

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