‘Gender Weave’ at MAAG challenges ideas of gender and identity

What are gender and identity? Artists in The Gender Weave Project at the Mount Airy Art Garage (MAAG) are investigating that through art. The exhibit will explore women’s equality and gender while celebrating Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day.

The exhibit features works by professional artists and by students from Moore College of Art & Design, the first and only women’s visual arts college in the country. Some may make more traditional choices, some may challenge conventional norms, and others may choose to address their intersecting identities, organizers say.

Emilie Didyoung, a senior at Moore, is the student liaison for the exhibit with MAAG (a nonprofit artist hub founded by professionals in Germantown, Mount Airy, and Chestnut Hill).

‘Weighted’

Her work in the show features panels of cotton fabric dyed indigo. There’s a ceramiclike texture to them, she said, and a rock tied to the bottom of each. Didyoung, who used to hike and collect rocks with her father, tries to use all-natural materials in her work “to get myself back to the earth,” she said.

Her piece in the exhibit emphasizes her feelings about being a woman — a gay woman in particular, she said. There are challenges with that as well as with being a textile artist and being in art school. “There’s lots of heaviness that has been weighed on my shoulders from all these different things that have been happening in my life,” she said.

That’s her perspective, and she’s excited about the variety of points of view to be displayed in the exhibit. All of the artists have different backgrounds, cultures, religions, and sexual identities, she said.

No boundaries

Didyoung, who’s originally from Reading and now lives in Fairmount, never thought her being female should hold her back. Nothing should: “Everyone should be empowering each other. I played with Barbies, but also went outside and played in the mud.”

And now she plays with texture, color, and imagination. She doesn’t always know what each piece will say until she’s done (and even then, maybe not). But she knows that whatever it says is unique to her and not bound by gender stereotypes. Some might think blue or indigo are more masculine, she said, but they might also appreciate her work’s femininity. “My work has an easy, sometimes even flowy kind of feel to it,” she said.

Empowering art

Didyoung is inspired by the people at MAAG: “They empower women,” she said. So she’s proud to be involved in project, which emerged from a MAAG collaboration with Moore faculty member Heather Ujiie for International Women’s Day last year.

“It’s who we are — creating community, engaging in dialogue, bringing artists out of isolation to dream together,” said Linda Slodki, President and co-founder of MAAG. So this project is fitting, because the organization embraces diversity and reflects and celebrates it: “We hope to foster dialogue to challenge ‘social norms’ to overcome prejudice and misconceptions.”

The exhibition runs February 27 through March 29. An opening reception will be held at 6pm on February 27. On International Women’s Day (March 8), a panel on “Weaving Equality: Exploring Gender and the Arts” will be held from 3-5pm ($10). Admission for the exhibit and opening is free. All events are at MAAG, 11 West Mt. Airy Avenue, in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia.