PORTLAND – A decade ago, Anne Zill stood side by side with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to celebrate a women’s exhibition at the United Nations that she helped curate.
This week, Zill is in Paris to curate an exhibition of photography by American women artists. The show, in celebration of Women’s History Month, is arranged by the educational and cultural arm of the United Nations: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.
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The show is titled “Women at Work, Women’s Lives.”
Zill is best known in Maine art circles as director of the University of New England Art Gallery in Portland. She also is president of the nonprofit Center for Ethics in Action at UNE, and has spent much of her professional life working to improve the lives of women. One way or another, she has managed to blend her interests over the course of a long and productive career in ethics, advocacy and the arts.
“I love it when I am able to get the various streams of endeavors in my life working together to complement everything I do,” said Zill.
This coming Thursday, Zill will moderate a symposium in Paris with three of the photographers who have work in the exhibition, including Maine artist Barbara Goodbody. Joining them will be author and photographer Paola Gianturco and Donna DeCasare, a University of Texas professor and Fulbright Fellow.
They will discuss their work as artists, and how and why they focus their efforts on women’s lives. They will talk about their approach, technique and how they choose their subjects.
The show in France is the third time Zill has worked with a United Nations organization. In 2000 and again in 2001, she partnered with the U.N.’s Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UNIFEM. That’s when she made her acquaintance with U.N. Secretary-General Annan.
“The exhibitions were very well received,” Zill said. “We were showing the progress of women since the fourth Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Our exhibitions featured art by women. Last year, 15 years after the Beijing conference, we explored the possibility of doing another exhibition that would look at the progress of women since the earlier exhibitions.
“There are many ways to measure progress — economic activity, human rights, voting rights, civil rights. So I decided to put a show together that would address those topics.”
How are women doing today, relative to a decade ago?
“We’ve made wonderful progress, but it’s not all glorious,” Zill said. “Many, many challenges remain, and there are still too many places in the world where women are barely subsisting.”
The U.N. accepted Zill’s exhibition proposal in December. In January, the organization informed her that her Paris exhibition could not include photographs of war. The U.N., apparently, did not want to offend warring member states.
The news diminished Zill’s enthusiasm and eliminated half the photographs she intended to show.
“War is very much a part of many lives throughout the world. Some of my best photographers could not be in the show,” she said.
But Zill regrouped, and formed a theme around the concept of women, work and their daily lives.
She is showing a photograph by Goodbody of a young Kenyan girl looking longingly at a toy angel in a department store. The photo is called “Hope Amid Hardship.” Another Maine artist, Marta Morse, is showing work she shot while traveling in Mayanmar.
Last week, as she prepared for her trip, Zill bubbled with enthusiasm. She was thrilled to be going back to Paris, and could barely contain her zest.
“There are a lot of ambassadors coming, a lot of important people. It will be a departure. I am not used to being around the diplomatic world, but it’s going to be a great experience,” she said. “I cannot wait.”
Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at:
bkeyes@pressherald.com
Follow him on Twitter at:
twitter.com/pphbkeyes
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