Vote 2020

VOTE 2020

Sculptural piece, enamel on wood, 23 kt gold details. Exhibited at The Pre-Vinylettes’ Suffragette Centennial – September 2020, Ford Gallery, Portland OR.

Without voting, there is no democracy and without democracy there's tyranny. Women from all over the world experienced it in many ways, and still, unfortunately, are.

With this piece I want to celebrate the courage and the braveness of those women who stood against tyranny, conquering the right to vote, to express their sentiments and their political opinions.
Those women had different cultural backgrounds, different ages, different ethnicities, different beliefs but they were united, and so they won.
Anna Kuliscioff, a Russian-Italian doctor and suffragette, in 1894 wrote:

In tutta Europa e in America si costituiscono eserciti di donne, che combattono per la loro redenzione e per iscuotere il giogo secolare, imposto loro dal sesso maschile. E sebbene questa lotta delle donne non sia tanto manifesta, perché – per una infinità di motivazioni fisiologiche e psichiche – non può mai assumere quel carattere di asprezza e di odio, che distingue la lotta delle diverse classi sociali, essa non può tuttavia aver altro significato che la tendenza ad abbattere il privilegio dell'uomo, e a scrollarne il potere.

Translated freely from Italian:

In all Europe and America entire armies made of women are gathering together, they fight for their redemption and to shake the age old-yoke, that the male sex impose. Although this women's fight is hardly displayed, because – for thousands of physiological and psychological reasons – it could never assume that harshness and hate, that distinguish the battle of different social classes, it cannot have another meaning other than break down male privilege, and break down his power.