In 2009 Aston University held a Year of Gender, Progress & Power which included a range of activities to improve our own performance on gender equality and raise the debate about sex and power. We held a series of high profile lectures and events related to gender equality.
International Womens Day (March 5th 2009)
As part of Aston’s year on Gender Progress and Power, Aston held an International Women’s Day fair on Thursday, 5th March to celebrate gender in a variety of cultures through institutions and societies.
Organisations from across Birmingham attended the fair at the Aston Student Guild from 11.30am to 2.30pm to raise awareness of gender and to highlight the different roles women represent in society. Over 20 institutions will have stalls or displays at the fair including Breast Cancer Care, Women in Music, Aromatherapy and Fair Trade Design.
Among the organisations attending were Concrete to Coriander, a local voluntary group whom from their own success, promote the benefit of allotment gardening to Asian women and other under-represented groups.
The purpose behind International Women’s Day, part of Aston’s series of events for Gender, Progress and Power, is to encourage gender equality in employment and higher education, including raising awareness of contemporary gender issues.
Lectures
Seminars
Wellbeing Sessions
Nutrition, Toxic Toiletries and Resources for Health and Wellbeing (August 7th 2009)
Exhibition of Paintings from Rwanda by Helen Wilson in University Foyer (Month of October 2009)
Making Sense: A Rwandan Story
This exhibition shows a selection of prints of paintings[1] from Making Sense: A Rwandan Story, a collaborative project and exhibition, inspired by a visit the artist Helen Wilson made to Rwanda in 2002. The paintings tell a powerful and moving story of personal dignity, courage and survival. Helen Wilson has been painting images of Rwanda since the 1994 genocide, which claimed the lives of over a million people in 100 days. Having met survivors and visited the genocide sites, she produced new works that show both the beauty of Rwanda and the resilience of its people in the face of a massive human tragedy.
“Trying to make sense of what happened in Rwanda has been at the heart of my work for nearly a decade. I want to express through this project as much as possible about Rwanda as it is today - the beauty and the tragedy, and the dignity and grace of its people in the aftermath of the genocide. I am not a politician or a journalist, but I can paint. That’s my communication tool. I want to represent what I saw clearly and accurately, to offer understanding and hope for the future” - Helen Wilson
Making Sense: A Rwandan Story was accompanied by a documentary film about the artist’s work on this project. It was produced by award-winning cameraman Mike Fox and BBC director Kate Broome, who have previously made television programmers together in Rwanda.
Helen Wilson will be visiting Aston on 20th October to show the film and to talk about her experiences in Rwanda and the way these are communicated through her paintings. This event will take place at 5.30pm in the Sumpner Lecture Theatre. The original paintings have been donated to the Rwanda Government for exhibition in Rwanda
