Celebrating Women's International Day 2023: two exhibition openings

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain presents two exhibitions from Spanish photographers Paula Anta and Ana Amado.

The Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain will celebrate International Women’s Day with the opening of two photography exhibitions on view at the Former Residence. Spanish artists Paula Anta and Ana Amado will join forces to present their personal and unique work of two different but engaging topics.

Uproot by Paula Anta

Uprooting is the loss or corruption of the roots and symbolizes an estrangement or loss of vital meaning. This exhibition, Uproot by Paula Anta, showcases three photographic series taken in different parks inside and outside of Washington, D.C., presenting the uprooting process from different perspectives.

The Uproot series displays images of tree roots that, due to age or illness, have fallen. Their new state, even if it is already lifeless, turns visible what has remained hidden under the soil. The fall of the tree verticalizes the root, almost like a wall, carrying in its nooks and crannies stones, sand, and all nutrients of the soil. The root is presented almost like a steroid floating back again among the hidden, connecting the shapes and forms that belong to the inner and the outside, in a kind of cosmos.

Thermal Nature presents a diptych of rhizome images through the shapes of almost symmetrical patterns. They are roots and branches in mangroves, rivers, and their mouths. The hidden part that emerges and disappears by the fall and rise of the water. Printed on thermal blankets, they allude to the temperature changes that our planet is suffering and the importance of trying to maintain those that ensure our survival.

Lastly, the Hoist series is an act of salvation. The fallen tree that arises, even if it is through an artistic action or intervention. Once more, the banks of the Potomac hide the roots, to hoist the trees as landmarks. These, again, show their richness as triumphant poles that wave, to the beat of the air, the sacredness of the forms.

Lideresas by Ana Amado

The inequality between men and women, especially in positions of power, responsibility, and leadership, remains overwhelming. Though much has been accomplished, much remains to be done. This imbalance becomes even more obvious in older women, especially those over 65, with large gaps in command positions; though they still play an essential role as a support for families by taking care of grandchildren, husband and other elderly people, they remain invisible in our society.

This project turns our gaze towards them. To do so, artist and women recreate iconic or well-known photographs where male leaders are shown in any area of society, to generate a healthy debate and change through the power of photography.

With photography as a medium in itself, looking inside its ontology and reverting these well-known images, the new protagonists in the first shooting were Las Lideresas de (The Women Leaders of…), a group of older women from a working-class neighborhood in Madrid, who together developed activities that sought to give voice and light to women. What started with a group of elderly Spanish women has kept growing, showing that powerful females are everywhere.

After these early sessions in Madrid, the series kept growing, adding new experiences and sessions with other groups of older women of any condition and place. In Galicia, in 2020, a group of 20 older women participated in a series of collaborative photographic workshops that involved three educational centers and nearly a hundred young students. In Gambia, in 2021, a session took place with women from Tujereng, another one with a group of students and women from Huesca and Gurrea de Gállego, and in Vegaviana, a colonial village near Portugal.

This is the first time the author, Ana Amado, photographs American women to join the project in Washington, D.C.

This is the first time the author, Ana Amado, photographs American women to join the project in Washington, D.C.