Vogue-IICA exhibition puts the resilience, courage and perseverance of rural women in the Americas on display in Argentina
Buenos Aires, 15 November 2018 (IICA). In keeping with its commitment to gender equality and its support for the Premio Aliment.AR (Aliment.AR Award), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is taking the “The Soul of Rurality” exhibition to Buenos Aires. The project is the product of an unprecedented partnership with Vogue Magazine and portrays the reality of women who work the land in Jujuy, Argentina; Pará, Brazil; Antigua, Guatemala; and Treasure Beach, Jamaica.
The exhibition includes 27 photographs by renowned Brazilian photographer, Cecilia Duarte, and arose out of a Vogue-IICA partnership that seeks to draw public attention to these rural women: true examples of resilience, courage and sisterhood. The term ‘sisterhood’ refers to the feeling of solidarity among women, and their sense that they are equals who can join forces, share, and change their reality.
Specialist curator, Virginia Fabri, organized the exhibition, which opens on 15 November at the Restaurante Central de la Rural in Palermo, Buenos Aires, on the occasion of the Premio AlimentAR awards ceremony. This comes on the heels of a successful showing in San José, Costa Rica, where it was a featured event of IICA’s celebrations in honor of International Day of Rural Women on 15 October.
The exhibit will move to the Salón Retiro at the Buenos Aires Sheraton Hotel from November 20 – 23 and can later be seen at the city’s Centro Cultural Borges, from November 29 to December 11.
IICA’s Director General, Manuel Otero, remarked that, “This exhibition is in keeping with one of IICA’s firm commitments: to foster and contribute to the formulation of sound and long-term public policies to benefit women in the countryside. Bridging the gaps of inequality in rural areas is the duty not only of governments but also of civil society”. IICA is the hemispheric agency specializing in agricultural and rural development.
Otero is a member of the panel of judges for the Premio Aliment-AR awards committee.
Some of the images now on display in Buenos Aires, and previously in Costa Rica, were published in the Vogue October edition, alongside articles relating the stories of courageous rural women, whose daily toil contributes to world food security – producing more than half of the food consumed in the world according to W20 data - and also to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals.
The Vogue-IICA traveling exhibition will also make stops in the four countries where photographs were taken of 100 rural women. During the production, the Vogue team took 15 flights and travelled 2, 500 kilometers, crossing rivers, mountains, forests and deserts. The images in “The Soul of Rurality” will also be displayed in Sao Paolo, Brazil in December.
Daniela Falcão, CEO of Ediciones Globo/ Condé Nast and Editor of Vogue Brazil, shared her hope that these printed images would, “light a spark in those who viewed them, inspiring them to turn the spotlight on these women, their causes and their strength”.
Curator Virginia Fabri remarked that, “These photos portray the rural women of Latin America and the Caribbean in all their splendour, focusing on the empowerment of the rural woman and craftswoman, with extraordinary images that highlight the value of their work, which is often overlooked and undervalued”.
The Vogue-IICA exhibition will open on the occasion of the Premio Aliment.AR awards ceremony, organized by Banco Galicia and Exponenciar to emphasize the importance of food production to Argentina.
The Premio Aliment.AR highlights the role and development of Argentinian food and beverage companies, by recognizing their competitiveness; paying tribute to their success in international trade; fostering and rewarding their work; and publicizing their achievements, both nationally and internationally.
More information:
Institutional Communication Division, IICA