As a Museum Studies Graduate student I was happy to take on an exhibit project when asked by my boss here at Gleeson. It would be a great opportunity to practice my curatorial skills.
The exhibit, titled “Beyond the Mask: Beauty Revealed,” is the result of GLIDE’s Women’s Center workshop led by poet, GLIDE co-founder, and USF’s Diversity Scholar & Visiting Professor Janice Mirikitani. The workshop was an exercise in self-reflection, encouraging women to write a poem about how they see themselves. These twelve courageous women also wrote poems about how they see one another. The juxtaposition of the poems reveal the power of the word; these women do not write about themselves as victims of domestic violence but as survivors who have transformed their lives, inspiring us to persevere.
Be sure to hear Mirikitani speak at Diversity Talks: The Power of Human Connection on October 7th.
The exhibit is on display in the north stairwell between the first and second floors of Gleeson Library.