Women Forward!

In June 1915, after 25 years of political struggle, women in Denmark achieved the right to vote. This year, 100 years after, we are marking this historical event with the exhibition Women Forward! - A meeting between two generations of voices in art. The exhibition puts focus on the visibility of women in our culture and their impact on our society - both today and in the past.

Here, 100 years after it is relevant to ask: were the voices of the women heard? were they recognized as equal cultural producers of the twentieth century? what has their contribution been to culture and society? and has the female artists and their contributions been represented in art history and thus in our common storytelling?

Women Forward! - A meeting between two generations of voices in art addresses the issues through contemporary works created by young female artists born in the 1970s and 1980s. All the exhibited works involve a form of dialogue across time, as the seven contemporary artists have based their works on female artists of the early modernism, whom they had no previous knowledge of. The younger female artists have researched into their predecessors' lives, works, thoughts and ideas, and express their works through film, installations, posters, woven carpets etc. Works that all involve a dialogue between the younger female artists and their predecessors, who were the first generation of women who had all the formal rights needed to participate in the public debate: the right to vote, access to higher education, access to parliament etc.

Participating artists: Sandra Boss (DK) / Sarah Browne (IE) / Unni Gjertsen (NO) / Marie Højlund (DK) / Birgitte Ejdrup Kristensen (DK) / Sine Bang Nielsen (DK) / Claudia Reinhardt (DE) / Pia Rönicke (DK) / Bettina Camilla Vestergaard (DK).

The exhibition is curated by artist Birgitte Ejdrup Kristensen (DK) and art historian Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen (DK/NO).

The exhibition is supported by Knud Højgaards Fond, Nordic Culture Point, Oda og Hans Svenningsens Fond, Roskilde Kommunes Kulturpulje, the Danish Arts Foundation and Office for Contemporary Art, Norway