The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Introducing The Reconstructionists: A Yearlong Celebration of History’s Remarkable Women

It can be extraordinarily challenging to write about notable women without ghettoizing it as “women’s issues,” and yet some of the most remarkable hearts and minds to drive humanity forward have come equipped with two X chromosomes. It gives me enormous pleasure to announce a new collaboration with artist Lisa Congdon, titled The Reconstructionists — a yearlong celebration of remarkable women across art, science, and literature, both famous and esoteric, who have changed the way we define ourselves as a culture and live our lives as individuals of any gender.

Every Monday in 2013, we’ll be publishing an illustrated portrait of one such trailblazing woman, along with a hand-lettered quote that captures her spirit and a short micro-essay about her life and legacy. We’re launching with four portraits — writers Anaïs Nin and Gertrude Stein, artist Agnes Martin, and inventor/actor Hedy Lamarr — for a taste of the project’s scope and sensibility, but will be publishing one per week for the remainder of the year.

The project borrows its title from Anaïs Nin, one of the 52 female icons, who wrote of “woman’s role in the reconstruction of the world” in a poetic 1944 diary entry — a sentiment that encapsulates the heart of what this undertaking is about: women who have reconstructed, in ways big and small, famous and infamous, timeless and timely, our understanding of ourselves, the world, and our place in it. (Nin’s work was also how Lisa and I first crossed paths creatively, which adds a private celebratory element to the public project.)

The site was generously and thoughtfully designed by wonder-worker Kelli Anderson, my collaborator on the Curator’s Code project and one remarkable woman herself.

Please enjoy.


Published January 7, 2013

https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/01/07/the-reconstructionists/

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