Nyc Honors More Horses Than Women, Hiding Its Historical Gender Bias In Plain Sight
Art collective transforms NYC Monuments from male to female, highlighting public gender bias through augmented reality.
- New York, NY (1888PressRelease) March 13, 2022 - New York City claims to be “the best place in the world for women to succeed,” yet its public art tells a different story. 91% of the statues depict men. Why are there more statues of horses than notable women? The women-led artist and curator collective XRE (Extended Reality Ensemble) has transformed NYC’s most notable stone men into women and nonbinary people, kicking off a year-long installation during National Women's Month.
#MakeUsVisible presents new digital monuments that pose the question: who is valued in our city’s public spaces? Public monuments express who and what matters to a culture. Despite New York City’s vibrant and diverse community, the non-male half of the city–53%!!–is almost entirely left out of that conversation. #MakeUsVisible’s core mission is to lift 4.5 million female-identifying and nonbinary voices to provide people of all genders a seat at the table in NYC.
Starting March 4th, XREnsemble will juxtapose digital monuments of gender diverse figures against statues of men across the city—locations include Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, The NYPL, Columbus Circle, and Grand Army Plaza. The interactive map available on both the XRE and Pollinate websites guides viewers to 31 virtual monuments shown in Augmented Reality, as an audio tour tells the stories of each new monument. Using their smartphone screens, audiences can reveal a public landscape more empowering to all genders. Find a link to the new monuments and guided tour.
“Let’s celebrate Women’s History Month by dismantling the myth that only men should have monuments. #MakeUsVisible uses AR to propose a new balance, highlighting women and nonbinary people who live and thrive in New York!” says Anne Wichmann, co-founder XRE. “We want to make the visible, visible.”
A unique aspect of the #MakeUsVisible initiative is the usage of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to encapsulate the contributions of the participants on the blockchain. NFT is a blockchain-stored certificate of authenticity for a unique digital or physical asset. The branded “Patron Tokens” is an immutable record of the MakeUsVisible project, its contributors, and supporters who seek to push the conversation of gender equity forward. The team is utilizing this technology to not only commemorate the project’s launch but also to explore the model of web3 vs web2 art patronage.
This collection of Patron Tokens is available on the Polygon Blockchain, which uses a variety of technologies to create a speedy parallel to Ethereum that is more efficient in terms of transaction speed, fees, and environmental impact compared to the proof-of-work mechanism that powers Bitcoin and Ethereum.
We have the power to #MakeUsVisible.
Re- envision the physical world for gender equity.
Find out how to get involved and support visit ioby crowd funding and find makeusvisible
Hashtags: #MoreHorsesThanWomen #DudettesOnPodiums #MakeUsVisible
#GenderEquityStatues #NonBinaryPositivity
###
space
space
Satisfied Users & 
Approved Press Releases
Print
Email
Report Spam