The opening of my solo show, Faneuil Library!

McSweeney, Brenda Gael · March 8, 2014

'This final photograph by my Brighton neighbor Eric West shows how the Women of Vision spread to West Africa! My United Nations colleagues there saw our Women's Initiative booklet on Brighton-Allston, and decided we should work on one for Burkina Faso! Unbound Visual Arts, of which I am a Founding Council of Advisors member, spotted my photo essay co-authored by Burkinabe Scholastique Kompaore with Casey Fox of BU on lightening West African's onerous workloads, and freeing up time and energy for educational and lucrative activities, and UVA proposed a solo show here! So on March 8th, International Women's Day, the Faneuil Branch of the BPL in Oak Square, Brighton, hosted the show, co-sponsored by the UNESCO/UNITWIN Network on Gender, Culture and Development that I manage at Boston University Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, and by Unbound Visual Arts. Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center, especially its Student-Scholar Partnership Program, also helped support our research. At left, we see a village woman demonstrating her numeracy skills in the 70s, alongside a women's group leader, then women celebrating a day's lucrative work, after a multi-functional machine they manage was introduced this past decade to lighten their food processing tasks. The UN Development Programme and UNESCO funded this work with the Govt. That's Lavanya Madabusi who now lives in Brighton and worked with us at BU, pictured in the Art Gallery space of our Oak Square Faneuil Branch Library, a learning hub dynamically managed by librarian Dorothy Keller in this unique Art Deco building. Pictured, from left to right: Brenda Gael McSweeney and Lavanya Madabusi.'