UNESCO Etxea and Irantzu Lekue present the #FemRIGHTS exhibition in Montehermoso Kulturgunea

They emphasize the artistic installation “Anonymous heroines” and the work “Original Sin” with a dome full of red, clean and bright apples that reflect  the superficiality

There are five rooms that host the exhibition which is part of the celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.

GASTEIZ Four months ago the Basque artist Irantzu Lekue started the FemRIGHTS project together with UNESCO Etxea.  Next Wednesday will see the light in Montehermoso Kulturgunea. An exhibition that alternates sculptures, artistic installations, stories and audio-visual works and takes up the entire first floor of the historic palace. As Jessica Domínguez, head of culture at UNESCO ETXEA explained ” it’s purpose is to promote, disseminate and remember women in history, referring to stereotypes, violence and invisibility experienced.”

FemRIGHTS began with a micro mural consisting of six large pieces and a projection. The work alternates in this first space with a place that, as a theoretical practice, the artist has arranged different newspaper cuttings related to gender discrimination and sexist violence. After this first room, the exhibition continues with a surprising artistic installation that alludes to the invisibility of women throughout history and the glass ceiling.

She does this through books suspended in the air, through which she achieves a curious play of shadows inviting the viewer to interact with the work: through a spyglasses installed for this purpose to discover the different names of women who have been invisible. “I have opted to involve the viewer also in these artistic installations, in the room itself,” explains Irantzu Lekue, who recalls that, “since she started the project, there have been several artistic actions  developed within this program” in neighbourhoods like Judimendi, Lakua or  the Medieval part of the city. ”

As she explains “it alludes to the absence of female references throughout history, to pioneer or creative women who have been hidden, ignored or reduced to the shadow of male creators, to whom their achievements have been relegated.” The work shows the difficulty of finding their names in books and the glass ceiling that denies women  access to the knowledge of female figures to follow – even knowledge and education in some cultures today, or in the ours in the past – in allegory of women’s access to high positions in society.

The exhibition continues with “Invisibility” a sequence of recordings of different traumatic experiences or violations of various women’s rights, to testify and raise awareness about the range of factors that affect the conformation of women. A piece that completes “Esku bideak” which in Basque means the path of hands. They ask for help and form lines of vindication and paths of justice that claim the rights of respect, freedom, the right to life and the safety for women.

TXIKITATIK: “ESTEREOTIPOAK” Is a reflection of contemporary society on dolls, specifically Barbie dolls, an object for children’s entertainment, which originally had a strong magical, religious or ritual significance. “We have studied the evolution of the doll from the post-war period to the present that contrasts the last five generation of barbies that represent traditionally masculinized worlds. These contradict the Egyptian woman and the Russian matrioskas. In the piece of work AHALDUNDU ZAITEZ! / EMPODERAT! A door invites access to a room where women’s liberation is reflected, promoting empowerment and a reflection on human behaviour in the face of social imposition, through historical milestones of female uprisings. “It is a room where I have looked for the viewer to see himself in front of all these milestones to raise new questions, so that each one wonders what each one does”

It is the work “JATORRIZKO BEKATUA” that closes the exhibition proposal of Irantzu Lekue with a spectacular piece of work. It is a dome full of red, clean and bright apples that reflects on superficiality, on the stereotypes of beauty, dependence and affiliation assigned to women, but which in turn question the food and duality between the original and the artificial. “In life and death, on the perpetual desire for eternity in the face of the reality of the ephemeral, aging and new generations. The ephemeral beauty and original sin linked to women with Adam and Eve, Snow White from Walt Disney and the poisoned gift from the evil witch who seeks eternal beauty and youth”.