Resurrecting Matilda
www.ResurrectingMatilda.com
A collaborative project by Los Angeles artists Mary Anna Pomonis and Allison Stewart.
Inspired by the stories left out of mandated textbook curriculum. The Resurrecting Matilda, series focuses on the historical erasure of women from academic discourse. The phenomenon, The Matilda Effect was named for the women’s-rights activist Matilda Joslyn Gage, and refers to the erasure of female scientists who have been left out of textbooks and their accomplishments credited to their male peers. The photographs explore the timeline of female historical erasures from the Sumerian poet Enheduanna, the world’s first recorded author, to Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who argued and won Roe v Wade at the age of 24.
The female participants were asked to identify a heroine they could embody in a portrait re-enactment photo. A special focus was placed on women the participants felt were left out of the historical metanarrative. The women collaborated to create the costumes and poses exhibited in the series. The participants thus far have been female-identifying artists, writers, and academics chosen widely from a diversity of cultures. Many have contributed quotes and texts to share about the historic women they have chosen to embody.
Carole Caroompas as Laskarina Boubolina, (1770-1825) naval commander and heroine of the Greek War of Independence. Laskarina was the first female Navy admiral in history, her ship the Agammemnon, was the largest rebel warship in the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman empire. Initially rejected by the Greek naval forces for being a woman, Boubolina raised funds to finance the Agamemmnon and fought independently on behalf of Greece. She was later decorated not by her own country but by Russia for helping win the Greek War of Independence.