Tonight at 7pm EDT Nasty Women Connecticut and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music present the virtual opening for the exhibit SILENT FIRE. You can sign up for the event here. You can follow NWC, YISM and the Silent Fire Project on Instagram.

Curatorial Statement

I burn in a silent flame. … And while for others speaking leads to helping their condition, for me speech only causes my death. 

—Barbara Strozzi, Ardo in Tacito Foco 

“Why have there been no great women artists?” asked Linda Nochlin in her iconic 1971 essay by the same name. Perhaps it is not because women artists never existed, but rather because they had been limited by society and neglected by history—forgotten, unknown, or silenced by those who wrote the books. Although the visibility of womxn creatives has improved in the last 50 years, works by womxn and works about womxn remain relatively obscure and are still often excluded from the Western canon. 

In an effort to extend the lifetime and relevance of Yale’s 2019 “Women at Yale ” initiative, students from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in closepartnership with Nasty Women Connecticut worked together to curate this digital display in order to amplify the voices and honor their contributions. Ranging from the 1600s to the present day, the included works showcase sparsely recorded musical performances and the artistic responses of contemporary artists to the programmed repertoire. An interdisciplinary project from the start, the Silent Fire Project team programmed six non-canonical musical works and issued an open call to contemporary artists to submit corresponding artistic pieces. The result? Nothing short of remarkable.

Accessibility Statement: A small collage (2.5 x 4″), made with ink and old photographs, depicts a young woman, from the shoulders up. Her head is turned slightly to her right and her blue-gray eyes are cast diagonally upwards and to her right. Her expression is not definable. Her skin is yellow, with green blotches and her reddish-gold hair is styled in a chignon. An irregular, thick, black line outlines the form of her head and shoulders, and delicately-patterned pools of black extend on to her face and shoulders. She wears a brown shirt or dress. Abstract, organic forms in pink, blue, green, orange, purple, and black fill the background.

My short film ‘A Fire Ritual for the Heart’ will be featured on the Instagram account as part of the virtual exhibit. I’ll let you know when I have the details. It’s meant to accompany Strozzi’s composition.