Lorie Novak’s How Long Must Women Wait? Courtesy of the artist
Department of Photography & Imaging Professor Lorie Novak and Chair Deborah Willis had their words and images featured in The Guardian in a story about the Park Avenue Armory and The National Black Theatre's initiative, 100 Years | 100 Women. Their works were among those commissioned by NYU's Department of Photography & Imaging, the NYU Office of Global Inclusion, and the NYU Institute of African American Affaird and Center for Black Visual Culture in order to celebrate and interrogate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in the US.
Their works are included in an online exhibition of commissioned peices, curated by Deborah Willis and organized by Lisa Coleman (SVP, Global Inclusion and Strategic Innovation) and Ellyn Toscano (Senior Director Programming, Partnerships and Community Engagement, New York University, Brooklyn), with support from Jaïra Placide (Associate Director, Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture). Click here to view the virtual gallery, “Woman Creating Nouns, Not Adjectives: Votes for Women."
From the article:
"'This is a critical year for women and specifically black women, as African American women have been actively working in the suffragist movement since the 19th century,' says Willis. 'My series is inspired by the activism of black women and whose names have been overlooked – those who made an intervention and fought for the right to vote, against all odds."
A photo-based artwork by Lorie Novak entitled How Long Must Women Wait? also looks at the battle that black women fought to vote. 'When women won the right to vote in 1920, voting was, in practice, only guaranteed for white women, even though many African American women were central to the struggle for suffrage,' Novak says."
