Bridging the Gender Gap in Public Art panelists (from left) Brenda Berkman, of Monumental Women, Saya Woolfalk, artist, Eve Samples, Executive Director of Friends of the Everglades, and Vivi Nguyen, of Hulu.
Friends of the Everglades is thrilled to be part of an exciting initiative, sponsored by Hulu, honoring the lives and spirits of three visionary women who made history.
Of roughly 5,200 monuments in this country, fewer than 400 are dedicated to women. That imbalance inspired the video-streaming company Hulu to create three new public monuments — including one dedicated to Friends of the Everglades founder Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
The Made By Her: Monumental Women initiative, which honors the contributions to society made by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and civil rights leader Coretta Scott King with permanent monuments installed in Miami, Atlanta and Los Angeles, also includes an animated mini-series produced by Hulu that tells the stories of the women that inspired the monuments.
This week, we traveled to Austin, Texas, for a SXSW panel featuring our Executive Director, Eve Samples, artist Saya Woolfalk, Hulu’s Vivi Nguyen and Monumental Women’s Brenda Berkman for a thoughtful discussion about “Bridging the Gender Gap in Public Art.”
“[The monument dedicated to Marjory] is beautiful, traditionally speaking, but it also allows you to bring some of that contemporary energy and problem solving into the space,” Eve Samples said during Thursday’s panel.
“The monuments have been a centering place for people’s activism,” Brenda Berkman added.
You can catch the full conversation about balancing gender disparities in public art below:
