In recognition of the gender inequalities still permeating most societies, curator Elizabeth Resnick organized the “Women’s Rights are Human Rights: International Posters on Gender-Based Inequality, Violence and Discrimination” exhibit.
The title of the exhibit comes from a speech given by Hillary Clinton during the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, where she said “if the term women’s rights were to be interchangeable with the term human rights the world community would be a better place.”
The traveling exhibit, originally curated by Resnick in 2016, opened on Fresno State campus in the Phebe Conley Gallery on Jan. 24.
Each campus is able to arrange the posters in their manner of choice, meaning Fresno State’s gallery technician Christopher Lopez and graphic design assistant professor Virginia Patterson were able to create a unique narrative with their display.
“Basically what happens is that we, you know, she’ll say we have a certain amount of posters, you get to choose how many you’d like to display. We printed the posters ourselves,” Lopez said.
The exhibit began with 100 posters, and of those posters Lopez and his team selected 83 to display in the Phebe Conley Gallery. These 83 posters feature 68 total artists and organizations.
Fresno State professor Martin Valencia and assistant professor Yasmin Rodriguez were also instrumental in organizing and planning the exhibit, according to Patterson.
“The [female symbols] on the pink wall [in the exhibit] [were] actually Yasmin’s idea. Martin was the original organizer, who secured funding for the show through an IRA grant,” Patterson said.
To set the tone of the exhibit, Valencia suggested increasing the size of several posters. One such example, the poster “Preserve the Right of Choice (Restricted Area), 1993” by Trudy L. Cole of the USA is blown up and hung in front of the door to the gallery in order to make a statement.
The poster, featuring a “Restricted Area” sign over a woman’s lower body, calls for the government to stay away from issues pertaining to women’s bodies.
“I think this is a really good display to kind of show, like, this is what you’re going to expect,” Lopez said.
Patterson shared the appreciation for the flexibility of the exhibit.
“You know, if you saw this in another institution, it would probably be displayed entirely differently,” Patterson said.
“It was challenging because I mean, going back I was like, ‘Maybe we should have reordered something.’ But I think in the end when you’re curating a show you make a decision,” Lopez said.
Lopez and Patterson agreed the format of the exhibit was done to create an intentional conversation regarding the issues presented in the posters.
“I think the power of this show is that it shows, like, a multitude of inequities that impact women and men in different ways. My hope for [the exhibit] was that students come in and are kind of empowered, especially our art and design students are empowered to use their voice and their work and sort of feel empowered to be confrontational,” Patterson said.
While the exhibit originally intended to open when students returned to campus, the delay in returning to in-person instruction has meant fewer visits to the gallery.
“The exhibit has been open the last couple of weeks, but of course it felt like we’ve been closed, but we did have some visitors,” Lopez said.
Local grade school classes have been visiting the exhibit for classroom field trips, and now that Fresno State has returned to in-person instruction, professors are bringing their classes by, according to Lopez.
The exhibit will remain in the Phebe Conley Gallery through Feb. 18. The gallery is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The exhibit is free and open to the public.