Birthing a Movement was a great event, thanks to our partners.
Birthing a Movement: An Evening of Art and Activism kicked off with a cocktail reception on Saturday June 8th, at the William Pitt Union. Over 100 individuals attended the opening reception on Saturday night with the opportunity to engage with interactive and displayed art from 11 different local artists and 3 featured exhibits from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health and AHN Women.
Birthing a Movement showcased many different types of art including photography, painting, and interpretive dance. We also had interactive experiences where attendees could contribute to collaborative art. The goal the event was to harness the power of visual arts to convey the emotion behind the need for social reforms. "We chose 'Feminist Art' to advocate for women's health reforms, particularly regarding pregnancy," said Karen Wolk Feinstein, President and CEO of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and founder of WHAMglobal.
While our work is to bring together different people in the same space where they can share their experiences and concerns in an educated, unified and creative way, the exhibit itself offered a new outlet for people to express their views and concerns through artistic expression and analysis of the works on display at the event.
Following all the advocacy work around WIC that WHAMglobal participated in during May, the WIC month, "I feel like the time is now. Sometimes if you get your timing right, if you push a worthy project, that's when you start making progress, so we wanted to get as close to May as we could and organize something that would bring attention to the WIC program," Feinstein said.
Birthing a Movement was also open on Sunday June 9th, with WHAMglobal presence at the Carnegie Library Summer Reading Extravaganza where we offered women and families space to share their many untold stories about their health as children painted and interacted with the team. We also gave away gift bags from our partner March for Moms and shared information on ongoing legislation around women's health
As local painter and fabric sculptor H. Gene Thompson put it, "reproductive health is an important issue to all people — it's something that all of us are experiencing in some way or another."
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