UPEI launches international women’s speaker series and photo exhibition on September 15
As part of its ongoing work to increase public awareness of international development issues such as gender equality, poverty and child mortality, the University of Prince Edward Island has organized an international women’s speaker series and a related photography exhibition, Resilience and Dreams: Women as Global Citizens, to be launched on September 15 at 3 p.m.
Social documentary photographer Carlos Reyes-Manzo, the artist behind the photographs, opens the lecture series and the photography exhibition with a speech in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre’s McMillan Hall starting at 3 p.m. The exhibition is on display at UPEI in the Student Centre’s concourse until October 10. This project is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency of Canada.
Over his 40-year career, Reyes-Manzo has traveled through Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, documenting people who are marginalized from society and who suffer human rights abuses. His exhibition will showcase the realities that women in developing countries face on a daily basis, their successes and their challenges. Each of the 35 images will have an accompanying story about the background and situation surrounding the photograph.
Reyes-Manzo’s exhibition will be set up in three other venues during the fall and early winter, with a different public presentation at each location. From October 14 to November 7, it will be in the Holland College cafeteria; Dr. Ann Marie Dalton, a professor of religious studies at Saint Mary’s University, will give a public talk on October 16 from 2 to 3 p.m. in the college’s lecture theatre.
From November 15 to 19, the exhibition will be at The Guild, with Corrie Melanson of OXFAM Canada speaking on November 15 from 7 to 8 p.m., and from January 6 to 26, it will be on display at the Eptek Art and Culture Centre in Summerside.
In a related event, Reyes-Manzo will launch a photography book called Voice of the Community at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery on September 18 at 4 p.m. The book, which explores the strengths and challenges facing rural P.E.I. communities, came out of a three-year UPEI research project led by Dr. Vianne Timmons, former vice-president academic development at UPEI and now president of the University of Regina.
The speaker series continues at UPEI in 2009, with a presentation by Frances Moore Lappe, founder of the Small Planet Institute Speaker, on January 7 from 7 to 9 p.m. A student symposium featuring Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, will be held on February 5 from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. And Maude Barlow, national Chair of the Council of Canadians, will speak on March 5 at 2:30 p.m. The talks by Lappe and Barlowe will take place in the Don and Marion McDougall Hall, and the student symposium in the Student Centre.
The exhibitions and presentations are free, and everyone is welcome. For more details go to upei.ca/internationalization or contact Emily Gorman at exhibition@upei.ca or (902) 566-0576.
