My Sister’s Voice

November 1, 2014 – February 8, 2015 Exhibition Programs

Forty large-scale, high-resolution black and white photographs present intense portraits of a culturally diverse, international and local group of women who demonstrate how deeply women participate in society at all levels. These women range in age from 18 to 92, showcasing the courage, wisdom and talents of women of all ages in our society and global discourse. This exhibition directly confronts the viewer and audience about our core community and societal perceptions and artifices that influence our social, economic, and political landscape. This collaborative exhibition was produced by Alexis Dixon and Pablo Mason. Pablo Mason is a native of Santa Fe, NM, who has worked as a San Diego based commercial photographer since moving to California in 1982. Mason studied photography in Boston and subsequently opened a studio in Mexico City, where some of his clients included the National Mexican Tourist Bureau, The National Oil Company, and a gubernatorial candidate with the PRI political party.  His recent work includes photographs of life in the back streets of Havana. This exhibition is part of a quest to portray the agility of the human spirit in the face of everyday choices and conflicts and to represent ordinary people’s lives as something other than simply mundane or meaningless; that the simplest gesture or activity however fleeting or elusive may suggest something iconic and timeless common to us all and instructive of our nature. Accompanying these photographs are three-minute video documentaries for each woman that tells their story with courage and dignity, revealing the texture of their lives, triumphing in the face of great personal and external obstacles.  In the voices of these women we hear daughters and mothers; brothers and husbands, preserving the knowledge of generations. Women featured in this exhibition include: Dee Aker, Mother Antonia, Toni Atkins, Carol Council, Anita Crandall, Isabel Cruz, Ellen Dolgen, Dorah Wanyana Dunigan, Jennifer Freeman, Crystal Harris, Rehana Hashmi, Bette Hoffman, Sabiha Husi?, Inocente Izucar, Linda Katz, Jewel Kelley, Chong Kim, Philister Baya Lawiri, Jeanine Lee, Michelle Lerach, Jerrilyn T. Malana, Samantha Shine McPherson, Catherine Mitchell, Rutuparna Mohanty, Fary Moini, Josephine Odumakin, Anne Otterson, Jan Phillips, Elisa Sabatini, Eunice Sanchez, Deborah Santanay, Lynn Schenk, Sydney Seau, Amina Sheikhj, Steffanie Strathdee, Deborah Szekely, Verna Griffin-Tabor, Ruth Westreich, Charlene Worrell, and Elizabeth Yamada.