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Celebrating Women

September 19, 2010 - January 2, 2011

Celebrating Women features festivals that honor women's roles, rites of passage, attributes, accomplishments and spiritual lives.  Forty-two of Paola Gianturco's most vibrant color images of parades, parties, feasts, ceremonies and competitions comprise this surprising photographic exhibition.  Different cultures honor women for completely different attributes: as athletes, goddesses, providers, warriors, mothers, flirts - and more.

The exhibit includes images from these celebrations:

• Swaziland's Reed Dance celebrates women as virgins
• Poland's Noc Šwietojaňsk Festival celebrates women as magical
• India's Kali Puja celebrates women as warriors
• Sweden's Festival of Sankta Lucia celebrates women as kind
• Brazil's Festival of Boa Morte celebrates women as political
• Morocco's Marriage Festival celebrates women as initiators

Paola Gianturco's involvement with women internationally is long standing: as a photojournalist, she has documented women's lives in 40 countries. She was Chairman of the Board of The Crafts Center in Washington DC, which works with low income artisans in 79 countries, and was a board member of the Associate for Women's Rights in Development. She co-developed and taught Summer Executive Institutes on Women and Leadership for Stanford University's Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and Mills College.  She sits on the Board of International Nature and Cultural Adventures.  Before becoming a full-time photographer, she spent 34 years in marketing and communications.

More information can be found on the Celebrating Women project and Paola Gianturco online at www.celebratingwomen.com.