The Roots To Resistance Women fared incredibly well on their first Road trip together, landing in Brattleboro’s Gallery In The Woods! The project was invited to the Vermont Gallery over the holiday season as an offering to their Community and a gift to the project. The project itself was still trying to create a path forward that would see us raising funds that could be put directly into the hands of the Roots Women. We had imagined finding a permanent home for the project, a larger institution or Community Organization that could garner more funds and attention for these amazing Activists. That process of searching still continues, but Gallery In The Woods showed us what a partnership between Roots To Resistance and a local exhibit space could do!
We have decided that in the foreseeable future, we will use all upcoming exhibits as Fundraisers with at least 50% of what is raised going to each one of the Roots Women and their Communities and Organizations. At Gallery In The Woods we were given 4 months and we did two separate Fundraising shows! The first was for the complicated legacy of Aung San Suu Kyi and we chose to raise funds now and in the future for an Organization called BRAC which gives aid in Bangladesh to Rohingya refugees forced to flee violence in Myanmar. The second exhibition was in the name of the slain Honduran Activist and Heroine Berta Cáceres, with funds to be passed on through her daughter Bertita to their organization COPINH. Both Fundraisers were profoundly successful due to money raised in kind donations and from the sales of our Roots calendars. We are so thrilled to be able to send out over $1200 in support to these profoundly important aims and our Gratitude goes out to Gallery In The Woods and to all who supported the show in Brattleboro!
The Vermont exhibit not only helped us to raise important funds, but helped us to imagine a way to carry the project forward as we search for a permanent home for the Roots Portraits! All these many years of creating the Women’s portraits, postcards and street posters have seen me restlessly awaiting the day that significant funds are raised from this project that can be put directly into the hands of the Women or their Community Organizations. I had always imagined that this would happen due to an auctioning of the Portraits but in the end I could not bear to split the twelve Women up because I feel that their strength is in the connection of all twelve. So the portraits for now will stay together and raise modest funds through a traveling New England exhibition and the kindness and coming together of these wonderful Communities.
Next week we will be bringing the project back home and exhibiting it at Northampton’s Anchor House Of Artists with an official opening on Friday March 9th. This show will be raising funds for Roots Activist and beloved Friend Malalai Joya. Malalai is an Afghan Peace and Women’s Rights Activist doing critically important, brave and selfless work in the Communities of Afghanistan. She continues to face profound challenges and is in great need of our support and solidarity. Please visit our exhibit at Anchor House Of Artists in the coming months to support the aims of the amazing Malalai Joya and infuse yourself with the earthshaking strength and spirits of the Roots twelve!
If you live outside of our lovely New England area but would like to be a part of supporting the work of Malalai Joya in this upcoming exhibit please visit the link below! We are offering a Postcard Fundraiser in $10 increments of support and 100% of funds raised from these Postcards will be put in the hands of Malalai Joya in support of her work in Afghanistan.
Click Here To Visit The Malalai Joya Postcard Fundraiser
If you are interested in hosting an exhibition of these twelve earthshaking Superheroines contact us at invisible_earth@yahoo.com
Sending vast buckets of Love and Gratitude out in all directions. Please share this post or pass it on if you can.
denise & Roots To Resistance
Roots To Resistance: A Project About Art Activism And Global Connection 