Empower Her Art Forum is an international art forum based in Egypt, and will be held annually at The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization on (May 20th – May 24th, 2023). The festival works to empower women through art, and is closely following United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG-5) as a basis for its goals, and those include:
- Ending discrimination against women
- Ending violence against women
- Ending harmful practices through awareness and empowerment
- Ensuring equal opportunities and full participation in public life
- Ensuring equality of economic resource availability and recognizing the value of unpaid work
- Empowering and supporting women who have been displaced (refugees)
- Supporting, and giving a voice to, women with disabilities
Egypt is home to, arguably, the most ancient civilization on this planet and ancient Egyptians have been known to maintain gender equality, with some of the most influential monarchs having been women. That is concrete proof that gender equality and women empowerment are not just “a new trend” but are interwoven into the very fabric of civilization. As such, we have decided to set the theme of the art forum at the intersection between women empowerment and civilization and have consequently chosen the esteemed National Museum of Egyptian Civilization as our venue; the perfect place for advancement through retrospective analysis of an ancient civilization where women have played an essential role.
The forum hopes to achieve these goals through an array of different channels, some of which are artist-centric, and others which are viewer or consumer-centric. Firstly, the forum aims to support and empower female artists by giving them professional development throughout the workshops and panel discussions that will be held throughout the forum. The forum also aims to enable female artists to share their vision by giving them opportunities to exhibit their work and potentially providing career opportunities for them.
Of course, an art forum of this scale will be tackling several other Sustainable Development Goals as a result of the awareness and open-discussion that will be created; the forum hopes to be a bright beacon of awareness for the region, working to instigate change on the individual and collective levels by empowering women to take action as well as bringing the attention of the general public to the infinite importance of this issue.
The forum also aspires to become a platform for people from all around the world to unite regarding the critical humanitarian issue of gender equality. A better future can only be achieved through the co-operation of humanity, and art is a universal language; the perfect medium to create that unity. We are also hosting several panel discussions to serve as an agent in the continued conversation regarding this SDG and others. We will also be including artists from several different backgrounds, as well as artists suffering from disabilities and displaced artists.
We are aiming high with this project and plan to have hundreds of female artists representing 35 different nations at the festival. The festival will include art exhibitions, panel discussions with leaders from Egypt and around the world (both in-person and virtual), as well as workshops. The forum will include a diverse collection of art forms including:
- Painting
- Digital art
- Sculpture
- Installation
- Video art
- Photography
- Sustainable art
- NFTs