Throughout history, women have used art to express their experiences, advocate for their rights, and celebrate their lives, writes Anna Johnson.
International Women’s Day on 8 March is all about the stories of women and is something that Norwich Theatre will be celebrating in their International Women’s Day free two-day event Visible Woman at Norwich Theatre Stage Two.
Local female artists and creatives are responding to their own personal journey’s and stories of transformation, reinvention and identity. Visible Woman offers visitors a relaxed, social environment. Come with your friends, grab a drink, and explore multi-sensory responses for International Women’s Day.
The building will come to life an immersive event with performances and talks with artists, writers, and other performers.
We spoke to some of the inspiring creatives from the Wise, Bold, Visible Woman group to get an insight into their work.
Caroline Chouler-Tissier, a local artist, builds a 3D Volcano with coloured material overflowing out. She hopes to symbolise the “imagery around energy and the force holding everything together”.
She mentions there is a “rawness of emotion” with volcanoes that can connect us to earth yet can be a destructive force much like humanity ourselves.
The piece also represents our relationship with the environment and how for Caroline “going into nature keeps [her] grounded”.
The importance of getting together as women is that for Caroline “everybody’s got a different lived experience” that can be shared. As women we all have “difficult journeys to keep your own identity” so this is a great way to reclaim it.
She hopes people will gain “confidence in themselves” after the performance. For Billy Horsea, she hopes the audience will enjoy the “celebration of women” that is all together “colourful, imaginative, and rich”.
Billy’s piece is a she-wolf that represents our place in nature as for her “we are not separate from it” and it is “unfortunate if we don’t recognise that as we will destroy more of our environment”.
Pam Uden, became involved in the project “because we’ve come from different backgrounds and these days you think that you are the only one that may have suffered but hearing all these stories makes you no longer feel alone”
Andrea Paton feels the same, she wants the event to be “thought-provoking” and a chance to express herself.
Her art piece utilises her skills as a writer hanging labels that could apply to older women some positive, others not: daughter, sister, spinster. All in a canopy that will be around her that other artists described to be like a jellyfish.
She feels it is important to “give some visibility to middle–aged women” because they are often forgotten in society.
She has found getting together with other female artists to be “really positive” and “inspiring” and for Kirsten Riley, she feels the group to be “very important” and wonderful as they can “think outside of the box”.
For her it is paramount to “do some crazy stuff occasionally”.
Kirsten’s piece is “inspired by a drawing [her] grandson did of [her] picking [her] nose which he thought was hilarious”. But it made her think about the role of being a grandmother and how “grandmas have different meanings for different people like in fairytales”.
Exploring the roles women take on she compares how they are conceived versus how they feel to be.
Through her art she discovers the “journeys that you go through as a woman”.
As the performance is a celebration of women Kirsten mentions women “have a very important voice in society, it is important to let that voice be heard”, she continues “people fought for us, we should keep that going”.
The International Women’s Day 2025 campaign theme is ‘Accelerate Action’.
At the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158 to reach full gender parity, according to data from the World Economic Forum.
The IWD Charity states “focusing on the need to Accelerate Action emphasizes the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. It calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face.”
The action some of the women want to see is to “give women more opportunities to do those things that are important” according to Kirsten. Andrea wants “more presence of women” in the media and Pam believes “there is still judgement” on women that “we have to fight for all the time”. Kirsten believes there needs to be more fairness, so women don’t “think they have to be a certain type of woman to do something or to have a certain type of education”.
From preparing for the performance, Caroline mentioned “that’s why Norwich theatre is brilliant, it provides those opportunities” to express yourself creating a “massive feedback into the community”.
You can catch the artists from Wise, Bold, Visible, Woman and other creatives. Engage in open discussions and champion unheard voices and the power of women at Visible Woman.
Norwich Theatre Stage Two
7 Mar 6-9 pm and 8 Mar 12-4 pm, free to attend just book.