The art project SHE is SCIENCE has already conquered popularity all over Ukraine and now goes to an international arena. The project includes a set of 12 portraits of Ukrainian female scientists and creative captures made by local girls as part of a contest. According to Sergey Tokarev, an investor and an initiator of SHE is SCIENCE, the project has great ambitions that are supported by representatives of different countries including Germany and the US.
As Sergey Tokarev notes, the idea of the project came up after they asked people around how many female scientists they could name. Most could remember only Marie Curie, while others had difficulties with remembering anyone at all.
Therefore, the project SHE is SCIENCE is focusing on spreading information about Ukrainian female scientists who made a significant contribution to world science. The project organizers decided to combine visual and literary components to make their idea more viral. They invited five modern Ukrainian illustrators to create a set of 12 portraits of scientists.
After that, they organized an All-Ukrainian contest among girls aged 14 to 21 for the best caption to the paintings. The captions had to be written as essays so that they contain not only plain facts but also vivid emotions of girls-authors and their attitude towards the life stories of the heroines.
The exhibition was first shown on June 10 in Kyiv. There was a ceremony awarding the winners in the essay contest and a charity auction. The funds raised during the auction were aimed to cover the education expenses of the girls whose essays became the captions of the portraits.
After the first presentation of the exhibition to the public, the project organizers brought the portraits with creative captions to different cities of Ukraine. They start with Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, and Mariupol. After that, they brought the art project to Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, and Lviv. Overall, the exposition was presented by the organizers in more than ten cities.
At the same time, every institution in Ukraine that wanted to have the same exhibition was offered to get a free copy. According to Sergey Tokarev, they planned first to hand out 300 copies but there were so many requests that they decided to make an extra issue.
Considering the success of the project in Ukraine, there is no wonder it goes now abroad. In September, SHE is SCIENCE was shown in Germany as part of the Days of Ukraine in Berlin and Brandenburg. On October 26, it will be shown in Brussels in the Embassy of Ukraine to the Kingdom of Belgium.
The Netherlands also wants to host the exhibition: the portraits and stories of Ukrainian female scientists will be placed in the Hague University of Applied Sciences. After that, the exhibition will travel to the UK and Bulgaria. As Sergey Tokarev notes, the translation of the portrait captions to Bulgarian was made as part of the International Project Ukrainian-Bulgarian Translation Workshop, and that means that the project contributed to the collaboration between the countries already before the opening of the exhibition in Sofia.
The ambitions of the project are not limited to the achievements of this year. In 2022, SHE is SCIENCE will go to France, where the exhibition is planned to be shown in the hall of the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Another destination is the US, where the exposition will be accompanied by a discussion panel about women in science.
All the events related to the project SHE is SCIENCE are supported by the Ukrainian Embassies of Ukraine in the respective countries. The project itself is organized by the charitable educational initiative STEM is FEM with the support of the UNICEF and UN Women in Ukraine as part of the UN global campaign Generation Equality.