Women Hold Up Half the Sky: The Orientation of Art in the Post-War Pacific

About the exhibition
Women Hold Up Half the Sky was an exhibition originally held at the National Gallery of Australia to mark the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of International Women’s Day. Spanning one hundred and fifty years (from the 1840s to the present day) and a wide variety of media, this extensive exhibition was organised around particular nodal points when women played an especially potent role in the arts, shaping a period, for example, or a style. The final section of the exhibition explored two interrelated themes: the central role of Aboriginal art in contemporary Australian culture and the significance of Australia’s reorientation towards the Asia Pacific.

This defining moment was the subject of the Monash University Gallery’s exhibition Women Hold Up Half the Sky: The Orientation of Art in the Post-War Pacific, an expanded version of the original exhibition’s final section.

The artists’ responses to Australia’s place within the Asia Pacific were as diverse as their particular interests. For some, the engagement with different art practices, rituals, traditions resulted in the creation of lively, hybrid forms. For others, the shared histories of colonisation were a major concern.

MUMA Online Exhibition Archive
MUMA’s online archive is expanding. We welcome your feedback and input. Please contact muma.communications@monash.edu with any information that could help enrich the archive for future audiences.

^{Image: Ann Newmarch, Women Hold Up Half the Sky 1978, colour screenprint on paper, 79.2 x 55.8 cm (image). Collection of Julia Church}