"Curiosity reveals to me worlds that I do not know, through the spontaneity of my work, as my characters mutate with each territory I arrive at."
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Lara Maltz @laramaltz.animation is a multi-disciplinary Argentinian visual artist and animator. Lara graduated from the Scenography career at the Metropolitan School of Dramatic Arts (EMAD), in Buenos Aires. She trained in workshops with different artists in disciplines such as engraving, drawing, painting and sculpture. She continues her studies in the Master of Animation and Realization Stop Motion, in the Barcelona Film School (ECIB).
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Her work contains different worlds that are guided by interconnected, often taking the forms of hybrid enigmas. Elements of animal, vegetable and human intermingle. Maltz allows her curiosity and intuition guide her. She investigates various artistic expressions as ways to explore her own being, using art as a path of knowledge.
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Ashkasha is a stop motion film that she recently released out into the world.
"Guided by curiosity and desire, it is confronted with its own being and thoughts, that take it on a voyage to unknown places. Its reflection symbolizes a fracture that propels it to seek its transformation."
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#laramaltz #ashkasha #stopmotion #animation #argentinian #hybrid #empowerment #representation #storyteller ...

Maya Taylor @mayaalexis is an MTV VMA nominated choreographer and movement director working in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and NYC. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, she began her dance training at a very young age and shortly moved to NYC to pursue her love of dance at the prestigious Ailey School. After dancing professionally for many years, Maya began to create her distinct blend of movement that has sky rocketed her choreography career throughout film, television, fashion, and stage performance.
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“My mom was definitely my biggest influence because she was my dance teacher and she was a dancer herself and choreographer. That’s the whole reason that I started doing it. I quit around puberty because I thought I wanted to do something else, be a normal kid and not be in the dance studio all day. That lasted for less than a year. I tried to play tennis and some other sports. But I was like, ‘No. Dance is for me.’“
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“My style that I do and love is contemporary but the styles that I choreograph vary from job to job. I have to be able to choreograph everything. I have choreographed contemporary modern work, hip hop, ballet, jazz, salsa, tango, social dancing, waltz. Movement direction is also similar to a style. Like, someone could be a street dancer and you have to help guide them through what the video director has to see. I have to be able to recognize all these different styles and help people perform the best they can. I really had to expand my knowledge because when I started as a young dancer, I was only doing ballet, jazz and modern. When I started taking more dance classes, my world opened up.”
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Maya’s choreography has made significant contributions to the incredible visions of @kellyrowland for Sydney World Pride 2023, @rosalia.vt for the 2022 Latin Grammys, @solangeknowles , @regine.chassagne of @arcadefire and @st_vincent.
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“I wish I had known it sooner, like when I was younger growing up in Nebraska. You try to fit in but you were never meant to.”
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#mayataylor #choreography #choreographer #empowerment #representation #movement #dance #getupandmove ...

Elara Elvira @elaraelvira uses art as a research tool to create dialogues between disciplines.Her work balances between contemporary art, anthropological and historical research.
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Elara Elvira works with different media and plastic techniques: video, design, painting, sculpture, installation and stop motion animation. She also works in the conception and development of cultural projects and often combines her personal work with other collaborative projects as a way to investigate art as a channel for social transformation.
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She studied Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona and now lives in Berlin (Germany) and Nantes (France) where she participates in different residencies, exhibitions and other projects related to cultural production and education. In 2022 she leaned into historical studies and got a Master in Medieval Studies at the University of Santiago de Compostela.
#elaraelvira #medivalhistory #artassocialchange #connection #womenonwalls #balance #culture #empowerment #representation ...

Tina Basich @tina_basich_haller and Shannon Dunn-Downing @shannon_dunn__downing will be making history tonight (March 25th) as the first female snowboarders to be inducted into the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.
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Tina's and Shannon's history and accomplishments run deep. They were the first two women to have pro-model snowboards. Tina was the first woman to ever successfully land a backside 720 in competition. Shannon was the first woman to land a frontside rodeo 720 in competition.
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Their shared accomplishments include helping to create the women’s brands Prom and Tuesday, which brought technical women’s apparel to the snowboard world. They are also cofounders, spokeswomen and advocates for Boarding for Breast Cancer (B4BC), a non-profit foundation dedicated to educating young women on the importance of self-exams and early breast cancer awareness and prevention.
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Girls and boys alike have turned their eyes to these incredible women who helped pave the way for women in snowboarding. Their ferocity, their unstoppable power and their faith in themselves allowed them to break barriers and open doors for the next generations.
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"It's totally progressive. You can't just step right up to something you've never done or something you haven't come close to doing before because that's how you get in trouble. It's really important to work your way up to anything,”-TB
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We are thrilled that they are getting honored and inducted into the hall of fame. When we come together, push each other and support one another we are able to do incredible things. While there is no doubt in our minds that these two have individually forged the road for women’s snowboarding, we believe that having each other by their sides helped push them further than they would have possibly gone on their own.
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Congratulations Tina and Shannon! Thank you for all that you did, continue to do and will do in the future!
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#tinabasich #shannondunndowning #snowboarderhalloffame #womenshistory #historyismadetoday #empowerment #representation #ridelikeagirl #womeninsnowboarding #femalesnowboarder #boardingforbreastcancer #shred ...

As part of the Cowtown Phoenix AM skateboarding competition today (March 24th) in Phoenix Arizona, a new US postage stamp dedicated to the Art of Skateboarding is being unveiled.
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The Art of the Skateboard series features work by Federico Frum, a Colombia-born artist based in Washington, D.C. who goes by the moniker MasPaz @maspaz, Virginia-based artist William James Taylor Junior @c2o2r2e, and Alaska-based artist Crystal Worl @crystalworl (Tlingit Athabascan) and Di’Orr Greenwood (Diné) @woodburnskateboard.
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Di’Orr Greenwood was born and raised on the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona and remembers skating at the Desert West Skate Park on her first trip to Phoenix. Since that first time to Phoenix she has tucked some major accomplishments under her belt. One of them includes making the semifinals in tryouts for the the 2020 Olympic team.
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“It makes me feel incredibly accomplished, like this is a piece of history now. “I made a board I’m proud of and I’m so thankful for that.”
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Her design is inspired in part by the Morning Star and Evening Star, which she calls “the most consistent things in my life.” The colors represent the rising sun or sunset. “I wanted to do these color palettes that people can relate to.”
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The eagle feathers reference both the USPS logo and the artist’s own cultural heritage. “The feathers have importance to Native American people all across the continent; we pray with them, we do ceremony with them,” she explains. “They’re the closest beings to the holy ones.” Greenwood associates turquoise with providing protection, and says, “I just feel like it gives a [skateboard] life.”
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“I really hope to convey the message of not giving up. It’s okay to put it down for a bit and come back around to what you love, even if you’re not good at it, even if you’re just figuring it out. You’ve really got to trust the process and you’ve got to believe that you are worthy of everything.”
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@woodburnskateboard
#skatboarding #postage #usps #artofskateboarding #diorrgreenwood #empowerment #representation #femaleskater ...

"Repetition (repetition, repetition), with ragged edges and a sardonic, sarcastic drawl.”
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Loose Articles @loosearticles hails from Manchester, England and is a punk quartet with plenty to say. Specializing in discordant, hypnotic repetition their songs tell tales of boozy nights out, and radical politics. Their music speaks to all those determined to get through the age of austerity with tongue in cheek, pint in hand, and two feet firmly on the dance floor.
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Loose Articles is currently on their tour “Kick Like A Girl”
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“As northern women we have so much important stuff to say and a different point of view to offer. With this tour we really want to build a community with people like us, and show young women (and men) in the north west that the music scene isn’t just for boys.”
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“We have all known each other for absolutely ages, working as flyering for club nights. Tree said once ‘we can all play guitar and bass and we can start a band. All our mates are lads in bands so why can’t we do one?’ It happened from that. All of a sudden we found out Louise can play drums! We didn’t know that! We all did a practice together and straight away we all got each other. We went in with no expectations, no proper knowledge of the music industry but we had good support around us and lots of encouragement.”
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"Collectively, our influential subcultures loosely are 1960s psychedelic counterculture, the British punk movement, Burnley folk club and rave on."
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“At the end of the day we want it to be fun. We’re not signed to a major label so the main thing is we love doing it. And we want everyone else to have fun with us!”
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#loosearticles #punk #machester #england #kicklikeagirl #womeninmusic #britishpunk #psychedelic #empowerment #musicasactivism #gotsomethingtosay @ilovealcopop ...

Gunnhild Øyehaug is an award winning Norwegian poet, writer and lecturer. Her newest book Evil Flowers is a collection of short stories published by @fsgbooks
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In this collection of stories, Gunnhild extracts the bizarre from the mundane and reveals the strange, startling brilliance of everyday life.
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Across twenty-five stories, Øyehaug renovates the form again and again, confirming Lydia Davis’s observation that her every story is “a formal surprise, smart and droll.”
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Inspired by Charles Baudelaire, a dreamer and romantic in the era of realism, Øyehaug revolts against the ordinary, reaching instead for the wonder to be found in fantasy and absurdity. Brimming with wit, ingenuity, and irrepressible joy, these stories mark another triumph from a dazzling international writer.
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"I often think that the concept of “association” is fundamental for my writing, certainly, when I get asked if I can describe it... The sudden bridge between these different elements is what creates a context, an idea, a structure. And whilst one is writing, this bridge will also carry its own associations and lead the text in directions that one had not envisioned when one begins to write."
#gunnhildøyehaug #evilflowers #shortstories #writer #author #translation #norwegian #femalewriter #femaleempowerment #storyteller ...

“Everything starts from the fire I have for wanting to see things change.”
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“As an Indian teen living in America, I had strict parents who didn’t allow us to hang out with our friends outside school. I wanted to be like my American friends who had the freedom to have boyfriends, go to parties, attend sleepovers, etc. Music and art provided an outlet for me that kept me busy and allowed me to discover and become inspired by artists I still love today. Later in life, art helped strengthen my voice to speak on issues. It’s become a tool for me, in that sense. My voice through art is much louder and more far-reaching than the voice with which I normally use.”
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Jas Charanjiva @jascharanjiva is a Mumbai-based street artist, who was raised in Northern California and was influenced by San Francisco’s Mission District murals, uses her vibrant art in service of global feminist and activist movements. At the age of 12, Jas received her first professional skateboard and loved the art on the back of its deck. Since then she was deeply interested in underground street art and started to observe and shape her style in graffiti and underground art.
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#jascharanjiva #streetart #india #womenonwalls #artasactivism #representation #empowerment #femaleempowerment #streetartists ...

“I create for my community and if they feel seen and find sanctuary in my work, then I’ve done my job — I don’t need mainstream America’s approval to know that the folks I capture and their stories are beautiful,”
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LA based photographer Thalia Gochez @thaliagochez uses her lens to create a safe space for people to feel beautiful and free to express themselves. The 30 year old photographer was born and raised in a Mexican-Salvadorian household in Pasadena. She first got into photography through a fashion styling class at her local community college. Since then she has focused her work on uplifting the narratives of BIPOC individuals, especially Latinx women in her community.
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She empowers her subject by photographing them “in environments that mirror their identity, which tends to always be their homes, neighbourhoods and just spaces that are extremely personal and meaningful to them.” This is all done with a fashion photographers eye and bold styling.
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#thaliagochez #photography #empowerment #latinx #beauty #selflove #community #celebration #representation #losangeles #losangelesphotographer #fashion #femaleempowerment #bipoc #identity #sanctuary ...

"I write and record demos in my home studio constantly. I have a pretty basic DIY set-up - a little interface, a mic, a bunch of pedals and my guitar and synth. I love writing - I am completely enamoured by the process of switching off from the outside world and immersing myself within a song."
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Annie Hamilton @anniehamiltn is a musician and clothing designer from Australia. She classifies her music as "Indie rock with hints of shoegaze, psychedelia & grunge. Catchy hooks, soaring melodies and expansive soundscapes paired with lo-fi fuzzy guitars. It's a bit 90s, a bit nostalgic and a bit messy."
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She was a founding member of Australian indie rock trio Little May, but has since struck out on her own. She had a guitar placed in her hands at the age of 13 and has been writing music ever since.
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"My first show was an open-mic-night in a pub in a tiny town in Iceland called Ísafjörður. I was living there for a couple of months as an artist-in-residence, writing music and designing a clothing collection. I had just left my previous band, Little May, in which I played guitar and sang backing vocals, but I’d never sung lead vocals live before and I was so nervous about anyone hearing my voice. I played three songs to an audience of approximately ten people and got a free beer. It was a thrill! "
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She has come a long way since then and was named one of the artists to watch at this years @sxsw. Congratulations Annie! We can’t wait to see what you get up to next.
#anniehamilton #singersongwriter #australia #sxsw #artisttowatch #representation #soloproject #grunge #indierock #psychadelic #shoegaze #nostalgic #womeninmusic #femaleempowerment ...

Agniia Galdanova’s @agni__ia film Queendom @queendomdoc just premiered at @sxsw. The film features @genamarvin, a queer transgender artist from a small town in Russia, who dresses in otherworldly costumes made from junk and tape, and protests the government on the streets of Moscow. She stages radical performances in public that become a new form of art and activism - and put her life in danger.
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If you don’t follow Gena, we suggest that you do. Her creations are amazing.
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"We met in 2019 while I was doing research for a docuseries out of which Queendom evolved, and Gena was one of the protagonists. Back then she was living in St. Petersburg, and I’m also from St. Petersburg, and it happened that she was living almost on the same street as my mom, so we started to hang out a lot. We met, and very quickly, after a few months, I understood that I didn’t want to do any docuseries. I wanted to do a feature about Gena. "
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"I have a very long and complicated relationship with this topic of me and the camera being there and how it affects what’s happening with reality itself….And Gena, for example, was asking us to not follow very closely. It doesn’t look like a film shoot because she wanted to have her space, so we were trying to find a way to follow her to serve our needs and to not interfere with her performances. But it’s a very interesting thing because, in any case, when you enter the space with the camera, you change everything there."
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Find out more about the Gena and Agniia on their respective instagrams. Thank you for using art as activism! We support you!
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#filmmaker #agniiagaldanova #genamarvin #queendom #queer #trans #lgbtqia #documentary #artasactivism #expressyourself #empowerment #femaleempowerment #transrights #representation #femaledirector #thankyou ...

"I think art is always a conversation and in, the same way, I’m conversing with the artist that has inspired me when I create. I hope what I do tiene algun sentido [makes some sense to] another person when they create too. I actually think anything is a good excuse to start a creative process, and if one of my songs is an excuse for another artist, then this would make me feel very grateful.”
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"Knowing that just like that energy comes, it will also go. The same day it comes could be the same day it ends. Meditating definitely gives me perspective, eating an ice cream brings me joy, and moving my body gets rid of the bad energy. “
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Rosalía @rosalia.vt took home the inaugural Producer of the Year Award at the @billboard Women in Music Awards earlier this month. The 30 year old lyricists, song writer, producer and singer hails from Barcelona. She fuses classic flamenco, R&B, Hip-Hop, contemporary Latin-American rhythms and Electronic beats.

In her album Motomami, her lyrics sing a song of female empowerment by showing versatile expressions of femininity.
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#rosalia #producer #singer #songwriter #female empowerment #hiphop #latin #flamenco #electronicmusic #empowerment #produceroftheyear #billboard #womeninmusic #femaleproducer #motomami ...

Mikaela Shiffrin @mikaelashiffrin set the World Cup skiing record with her 87th win.
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“The best feeling is to ski on the second run when of course you want to win, you have a lead so you have to be sort of be smart but also, I just wanted to be fast, too, and ski the second run like its own race,” Shiffrin said
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Shiffrin has managed to break the world record before her 28th birthday and in four fewer seasons than the previous record holder, Stenmark. The Colorado skier has emerged as the greatest of them all.
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She has made history durning women’s history month.
Congratulations!
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#mikaelashiffrin #skiing #worldrecord #goat #empowerment #womeninsports #femaleskiier #worldcup #womenshistorymonth ...

Dr. Kate Biberdorf (@katethechemist) is a chemist, science entertainer, and professor at The University of Texas. She breaks down the image of the stereotypical scientist and destigmatizes women in STEM through her theatrical and hands-on approach to teaching. Dr. Biberdorf is the author of multiple fiction and nonfiction books, including bestseller children’s book The Big Book of Experiments, that highlight how science is prevalent in every aspect of our day-to-day lives.
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At @sxsw Madeline Hollern from Austin Monthly will interview Kate to learn how a young girl from Kalamazoo Michigan turned into what The New York Times called “a contemporary update of science popularizers like Bill Nye the Science Guy or Donald “Mr. Wizard” Herbert”.
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Looking back as we look forward we celebrate the incredible Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie. Curie was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.
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Thank you @katethechemist for making science accessible, fun and not just for a classroom.
#katethechemist #science #stem #empowerment #knowledgeispower #accessible #chemistry #sxsw #womenshistorymonth #mariecurie ...

“It's Only Life After All”
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With forty years of making music as the iconic folk-rock band Indigo Girls @indigogirlsmusic , Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have made their mark as musicians, songwriters, and dedicated activists. They have represented radical self-acceptance to many – leading now multiple generations of fans to say, “the Indigo Girls saved my life.” Still, Amy and Emily battled misogyny, homophobia, and a harsh cultural climate chastising them for not fitting into a female pop star mold.
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Alexandria Bombach @alexandriajb is an award-winning cinematographer, editor and director from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Choosing to live nomadically since 2010, Alexandria is confused when people ask her when she thinks she’ll “settle down.” She is happiest when walking across the Outback of Australia with feral camels, swimming in a secret women’s swimming pool in Kabul, or spending hours riding in the bed of a truck with her camera in her lap. As a friend once observed, “you’re a filmmaker like Indiana Jones is a professor.”
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"Every film I make I learn so much about storytelling, and my values are so determined in the films themselves. I think more than the style of editing just learning so much from Amy and Emily as people and how they prioritize community and activism and service and self acceptance, that inherently changes so much about me as a person and therefore my art so, yeah, it made a massive difference in my life. I'm a completely different person now.”
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One of Alexandria’s inspirations for film making is Sarah Polley. "Sarah Polley’s “Stories We Tell” came during a significant time in my filmmaking life — right before my first feature. I felt like someone was showing me a whole new world of what documentaries could be. I left that theater immensely excited to get to work.”
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Congratulations @realsarahpolley for taking home the Oscar for adapted screenplay for @womentalkingfilm
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#femaledirectors #alexandriabombach #indigogirls #sarahpolley #sxsw2023 @sxsw #empowerment #storyteller #filmmaker #music #womensupportingwomen #lgbtqia #representation ...

Everything Everywhere All At Once swept the Oscar’s.
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Michelle Yeoh made history and became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress.
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Jamie Lee Curtis took home her first Oscar at 64.
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And the Daniels’ acceptance speech stated “dressing in drag is a threat to nobody”
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As Michelle said “don’t let anyone ever tell you you are past your prime”
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YES!
#everythingeverywhereallatonce #michelleyeoh #jamieleecurtis #history #oscars #empowerment #representation #ageisjustanumber ...

Valerie June @thevaleriejune and Nabil Ayers @nabilayers will be discussing “The Revolutionary Power of Creativity” at @sxsw on March 16th.
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"Join the discussion between two dreamers about cultivating community, awareness, and harmony with our surroundings. Find out how Valerie June and Nabil Ayers use an array of artistic paths to inspire and create sunshine in a sometimes shadowy world."
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Valerie June is a Grammy-nominated musician, singer, songwriter, poet, illustrator, actor, certified yoga and mindfulness meditation instructor. Valerie is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Her sound encompasses a mixture of folk, blues, gospel, soul, country, Appalachian and bluegrass. She recently released a book of poems and illustrations titled “Maps for the Modern World” that is about cultivating community, awareness, and harmony with our surroundings as we move fearlessly toward our dreams.
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Valerie is currently on tour through June.
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"One of my favorite female electric guitar players is Jessie Mae Hemphill from Sanatoria, Mississippi. She’s passed now; most of the people I love the most have passed. I was living in Memphis and I was working at this cafe. And I opened up the paper and I saw this picture of this beautiful black woman with this electric guitar. And then I was like, ‘Oh God, she’s so gorgeous!’ So then after that I saw this next picture that had her with a pistol. And I was like, ‘This woman is so intense!’ And I was like ‘Who’s this black cowgirl?’"
#valeriejune #sxsw #singersongwriter #singer #blues #poet #storyteller #folk #empowerment #creativity #jessiemaehemphill #electricguitar #country #revolution #awareness #nabilayers #womenshistorymonth ...

“Disability is not a single, static experience. I love trying to capture the in/visible multitudes of my own experience by reimagining the standard parking permit.”
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Eliza Lutz (@matrondesigns) is an artist, graphic designer, and musician based in New Mexico. Working primarily as a printmaker, painter, illustrator, and songwriter, their work explores the dissonance between one’s internal and external worlds, and the relationships between trauma, chronic illness, and time.
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The work that Eliza is put forward in the SITE Santa Fe Scholars 10 show @sitesantafe documents, normalizes and raises awareness of chronic illness. The handicap placards depict the external hinderensess and the work she embroiders into them chronicle the emotional and physical captivity that accompanies chronic illness.
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We can’t talk about Eliza without honoring Judith Heumann who passed away on March 4th. She was an incredible disability rights activist. Her book “Becoming Heumann” is a beautiful memoir of her life and her legacy.
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“Change never happens at the pace we think it should. It happens over years of people joining together, strategizing, sharing, and pulling all the levers they possibly can. Gradually, excruciatingly slowly, things start to happen, and then suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, something will tip.”
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We are given hope by people who use their creativity, their platform and their voices to raise awareness about those who are often swept aside by society. More of this please! Thank you Judith! Thank you Eliza!

“For we are leaders of inclusiveness and community, of love, equity, and justice.”
― Judith Heumann
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matrondesign #printmaking #intaglio #embossment #embroidery #AccessibleParkingPlacard #DisabledArt #DisabilityArts #BabeWithAMobilityAid #storyteller #empowerment
#judithheumann #activism #useyourvoice #womenshistorymonth ...

“Life is just so short, everyone gets their own life so if you want to do a certain thing with your life, then amazing, this is what I want to do with my life.”
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Korean-American R&B singer and rapper Audrey Chu, known professionally as Audrey Nuna @audreynuna was born and raised in New Jersey, and has been writing her own songs since she was a little girl. Her music seamlessly combines genres and pulls influence from multiple cultures.
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"I always love the more organic stuff because I want to feel like my work is not being forced for any reason other than just being about it and saying what I need to say. When you try to crunch [creative work] into a business timeline, it kind of defeats the purpose for me, and it’s definitely something I’ve had to figure out—how to communicate and balance that. I do want to share my music and put things out, but I think that it’s worth the time that might take.”
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“I think just existing alone and writing, being a writer and artist, you just spill out what you are inside. Being a Korean American woman in her early 20s, in the year 2022—that is going to show no matter what. It happens naturally. I can’t stop it, even if I wanted to.”
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“Being able to be both hard and soft. Being able to write about being lonely and free at the same time, I think that duality is really important to my work.”
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One of her biggest inspirations is Missy Elliot @missymisdemeanorelliott . Elliott was inducted to the “Songwriters Hall of Fame" in 2019 and was the first female rapper to receive that honor. Elliott's experimental concepts in her music videos changed the landscape of what a hip-hop video had as themes at the time. Her catalogue of songs have included themes of feminism, gender equality, body positivity and sex positivity. She is often referred to as the “Queen of Rap” and her music has reached the masses. She is a hip hop icon and music mogul.
#audreynuna #rapper #singer #songwriter #womeninmusic #missyelliot #hiphop #empowerment #representation #r&b #womenshistorymonth #musician #storyteller ...

“Confessions of a Good Samaritan” will be showing at SXSW, starting this Friday 3/10. The documentary is about Director Penny Lane’s @pennyjupiter decision to become a “Good Samaritan” by giving one of her kidneys to a stranger. The film then turns into a funny and moving personal quest to understand the nature of altruism. “Confessions of a Good Samaritan” is a provocative inquiry into the science, history, and ethics of organ transplantation, asking an ancient question in a whole new way: Who is your neighbor, and what do you owe them?
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Penny Lane, a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, has been making innovative nonfiction films for over a decade.
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“If you cannot laugh at the absurdity of life, I just can’t vibe with you.”
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Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson has said "She’s always looking in from the outside. She can see things, is wrestling with ideas and then reframing them for us,”
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The incredible Agnes Varda is one of Penny’s influences “Her cinema lives and breathes and exudes joy, and I want that”
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Agnès Varda was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
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In Agnes’ last interview she was asked how she would like to be rememebered…
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"I would like to be remembered as a film-maker [who] enjoyed life, including pain. This is such a terrible world, but I keep the idea that every day should be interesting. What happens in my days – working, meeting people, listening – convinces me that it’s worth being alive."
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#pennylane #director #womeninfilm #storyteller #kidneytransplant #agnesvarda #sxsw @sxsw #empowerment #representation #filmmaking #femaledirector ...

Author and photo journalist Stephen Shames @stephenshames and the Black Panther’s longest serving female member, Ericka Huggins released a new book, “Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party”. The book is a dynamic visual and oral testament to the crucial role played by women in a revolutionary group whose figureheads, with a few exceptions, were men.
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“They were a revolutionary organisation who worked with anybody they felt was sincerely trying to change the system to benefit poor people and create a more just society.”
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In her foreword to the book, the activist and author Angela Davis @_angeladavis1944 points out that 66% of the membership of the Black Panthers was female. She writes: “Because the media tended to focus on what could be easily sensationalised … There has been a tendency to forget that the organising work that truly made the Black Panther Party relevant to a new era of struggle for liberation was largely carried out by women.”
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The book is an incredible record of the grassroots activism and political and cultural engagement of this unified party.
#blackpanthers #stephenshames #erikahuggins #angeladavis #empowerment #representation #activism #photojournalist #storyteller #womenshistorymonth #powertothepeople #internationalwomensday ...