When women artists envision a different world, how does that look? NMWA invites a close exploration of this question in Women to Watch 2024, the seventh installment of the museum’s exhibition series.
Given the extraordinary events of 2020 including a global health pandemic, intense calls for social reform, and unprecedented political division, any contemporary art exhibition planned for 2024 will necessarily include work that is impacted by all of these issues.
Selected works will answer essential questions such as how have our societal conditions impacted artists’ visions for the future or inspired them to create alternative current realities? Whether optimistic or discordant, fantastical or believable, artists have always had a hand in visualizing what could be and, in times of difficulty, have often provided hope––or warning.
Open to any medium, visualizations of the different worlds can be figurative or abstract.
Selected Artist
Irene Fenara
Irene Fenara’s work investigates the gesture behind every photographic operation: watching. In particular, she observes, investigates and interprets the way machines look. There are hundreds of mechanical glances in front of which we pass every day. Irene Fenara focuses on surveillance cameras. Devices introduced and spread for reasons of control and security, or rather to protect us from others, also trigger a series of insecurities. The images they show are often unclear, dirtied by a series of errors, such as an obstacle in front of the lens, a lack of resolution or an evident chromatic alteration. Just like our eyes, they (re)see and transform reality, catapulting us into an alternative and mysterious universe.
Shortlisted Artists
Elisa Giardina Papa
Irene Fenara
Martina Melilli
Pamela Diamante
Ruth Beraha