Visual Arts

Women's Views Biennial 2016 arises with hope, strength, and renewed spirits to show the creative potential of women and the marks it leaves on our state's art system and internationally.

From March to December 2016, the Women's Views Biennial will bring together initiatives that make women and gender issues a source for reflection, debate and creation.

The association Women in the Visual Arts was formed on May 9, 2009. Featuring among its many achievements is the Miradas de Mujeres (Women's Views) festival, running thrice between 2012 and 2014.

MAV member Mareta Espinosa, keen to shed light on the work of women in the visual arts, was behind the idea, and she directed the festival in 2012 and 2013. Initially located in Madrid and lasting throughout March, it reached a much greater dimension in its 2014 edition, directed by then member Mónica Álvarez de Careaga, and supported by the territorial authorities.

In June 2014, based on the results obtained and on a continued commitment to review procedures and aims, the general assembly of members decided that the festival should be henceforth celebrated every two years, alternating it with a year of reflection and debate about the previous and following festival editions. To that end, MAV organized the 2015 Foro Miradas de Mujeres, which took place on May 23 in Barcelona's Ca la Dona, and between May 28 and May 31 in Madrid's Museo Reina Sofía - MNCARS. The event provided the occasion to re-think the festival's format and the sharing of ideas and projects with other feminist art associations, both locally and internationally, with the support of the Spanish Institute for Women's Affairs and of the Secretariat of State for Culture.
Thus, a biennial spreading across various territories and lasting throughout the year from March to December was chosen to replace the existing festival format. 

With this new biennial, MAV aims to reach a more participative, engaged, horizontal and transparent standard of collaboration; one that will comply with article 26 of the Organic Law 3/2007 for the Effective Equality between Women and Men, not only during the month of March but permanently. Once women's full participation in social and cultural decisions has been secured, the biennial will transform into an act of inclusion and empowerment for all citizenship.