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.

For more than 35 years, the field of cultural studies has counted a vast majority of women, with a very large number of them earning highly qualified degrees in Fine Arts, Art History, Aesthetics, Literature or Film, among other subjects. Where good practice prevails - transparent selection criteria, gender blind evaluations, clear indicators - women are able to access positions of cultural responsibility directly and proportionately related to their qualifications (as is the case with the state's competitive recruitment system for museum curators). However, when opaque selection criteria come into play, such as direct appointments or arbitrary personal interests, men monopolize - through the permanence of out-dated models - the near totality of power and decision-making positions. Thus, our country not only misses out on the integration of our recent history's best-prepared women, but also on culture's democratic legitimacy.
The Women's Views Biennial, born out of the Women's Views Festival initiated in 2012, presents a renovated aspect in terms of its structure and work processes.

Drawing on the management experience of the previous three years, our aims, scope and shape have been redefined to espouse MAV's philosophy better, and that of the women's collaborative work.

As an association, we have learned from our mistakes and want our 2016 cultural management to be exemplary. In order to achieve this, we have applied a rigorous, open, transparent and horizontal evaluation system to the selection of proposals, to the team assessing the projects and in discarding single-handedly-decided appointments to prevent favouritism and abuses of power. Likewise, to avoid finance-related reservations, we have suppressed participation fees.

The Biennial parallels the reflection and debate forum organized by MAV on alternate years, the first edition of which took place last year in Madrid and Barcelona: FM15.

From March to December, and not only during its emblematical month, the Women's Views Biennial will assemble initiatives carried out around the issue of women's participation in the art system.