ALTOONA – Penn State Altoona will offer an exhibit of A Seat at the Table
on March 3 from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. in the Slep Student Center.
An invitation-only reception will be held 4 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. to mark the beginning of Women’s History Month. Student participants will be on hand to talk about the woman they are honoring and their visual representation of her legacy.
Penn State Altoona’s A Seat at the Table installation is the result of a year-long interdisciplinary project inspired by the mixed-media art project The Dinner Party,” created by Judy Chicago and permanently housed at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Chicago’s installation features thirty-nine place settings on a forty-eight foot sided triangular table. Each place setting depicts a mythical or historical famous woman of Western Civilization.
More than 85 Penn State Altoona students worked individually or in groups to create 36 such settings in celebration of women who have made a significant contribution to humankind, especially those who have not been recognized or canonized in mainstream historical records. The women represented are from North and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Asia Minor, and the Middle East and are significant for their intellectual, cultural and social legacies.
Students who worked on the project come from a broad array of academic disciplines, including engineering, environmental studies, women’s studies, history, political science, disability studies, and English.
The project is sponsored by Penn State Altoona’s Women’s Studies Program.