In its last year, the Wom@rts project continues to foster initiatives for equal opportunities for women in the European cultural arena. On the occasion of International Women's Day, it launches the WOMarts.net portal, a platform that seeks to serve as a meeting point for creators from different disciplines, make their work visible and stimulate contacts with other artists and cultural agents.
WOMarts.net involves creators in developing an online community of arts professionals, a place to share projects, find and connect with other European artists and be inspired by them.
In 2020, the Wom@rts project published the State of the Arts Report on women artists and professionals in the Cultural and Creative Industries sector in Europe. This report highlighted the existing gender gap in this area and pointed to lower wages, lower visibility and the difficulties for promoting women artists due to the existing glass walls and ceilings in the CCIs in Europe. The diagnosis determined that despite the European Union’s regulatory efforts, current statistics show that women are clearly underrepresented in the vast majority of ICC’s sectors.
With WOMarts.net, the project seeks to solve this situation and involve public and private agents in disseminating and promoting the artists’ profiles and creations. Registration is free and open to all artists who carry out their professional activity in Europe. Artist participants in the residencies and training workshops generated within the framework of the Wom@rts project are already involved. Now the platform is open for others to join, too.
The Wom@rts Project
Wom@rts is large-scale cooperation and non-profit project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Wom@rts pursues women’s equal share presence in the Arts regarding visibility, promotion, and access to the market from an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral perspective. Coordinated by the Auditorio de Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), Wom@rts involves an extensive list of public and private institutions, such as Fundación Municipal de Cultura del Ayuntamiento de Avilés (Municipal Cultural Foundation of the Avilés City Council, Spain), WIFT Finland (Women in Film & Television Finland), the Vilnius City Council (Lithuania), the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir and the Communauté d’Agglomération du Grand Angoulême (France), the Limerick Institute of Technology, (Ireland), the Hay Festival (United Kingdom), the Academy of Applied Arts University in Rijeka (Croatia), and the gallery UGM Maribor (Slovenia).
Between 2018 and 2021, Wom@rts implements a series of activities aimed to foster the equal share of the presence of women in the arts, such as the formulation and promotion of a charter in defence of gender equality practices in culture; the creation of a network of renowned artists and intellectuals committed to the cause and project; the development of an international online platform to promote women artists; the organisation of artistic residencies in the fields of engraving/printmaking, comics and digital/lens-based arts (mobility of emerging women artists); the opening and roaming of a commemorative exhibition of the 70th Anniversary of the publication of the book of Simone de Beauvoir “The Second Sex”, with works from the artistic residences; the organisation and coordination of masterclasses, workshops and conferences, training courses for creators and cultural entrepreneurs; or the participation of artists and intellectuals in different international cultural festivals, among other activities.
Find out more at https://womarts.net or explore Hay Festival's contribution to the Wom@rts Project - Hay Festival Europ28 - here.