By Renee Batti
Almanac News Editor
The world seemed a less-than-hospitable place when Paula Goldman was fresh out of grad school.
The serious-minded 26-year-old had just given up an opportunity to go to Israel and Palestine on a fellowship to write a book about peacemaking in the region because of safety concerns. But here at home, the economy was sinking rapidly and the country’s equanimity had just been shattered by the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Unable to decide what to do with her life, Ms. Goldman moved home to Menlo Park to live with her parents, Michele and Milton Goldman.
Her story is not so different from countless other young people looking for jobs and a direction in life after finishing college. But in the fall of 2001, the brutal terrorist attacks left many adults — young and not so young — stunned and searching for ways to help promote positive change in the world. Ms. Goldman was among them.
Four and a half years later, Ms. Goldman points to a casual meeting — Sunday breakfast with a grad school friend — as the unexpected turning point that would set her on the meaningful path she sought.
And this week, she and a team of hundreds will present the results of those years of effort: “Imagining Ourselves,” an art and writing project that gives a voice to the generation of women in their 20s and 30s.
Consisting of an international online exhibit and a boldly dynamic book — with a foreword by writer Isabel Allende — “Imagining Ourselves” is being launched on Wednesday, March 8 — International Women’s Day. It is sponsored by the San Francisco-based International Museum of Women, which will host a launch party at the Hotel Nikko.
The multilingual, interactive online gallery plus the book feature the artwork and ideas of some 420 young women from all over the world confronting the question: “What defines your generation?”
Although the women’s museum has sponsored a string of exhibits in its 21 years of existence, this exhibit is unusual in that there’s no need to cross the threshold of a building to view the artwork, read the artists’ words or participate in the project’s global dialogue. Admission is by eight keystrokes: imow.org.
“To our knowledge, this is the first-ever worldwide online exhibit,” says Ms. Goldman, now 30.
Ms. Goldman calls “Imagining Ourselves” a “cultural advocacy and social-change project” — a satisfying four-year preoccupation for a young woman who, fresh out of grad school, hungered to make a difference in her world.
The idea
It was the conversation over breakfast with her friend, Denise Dunning, that planted the seed for “Imagining Ourselves.” The young women talked about mutual friends and acquaintances “who were doing interesting and worthwhile things with their lives,” Ms. Goldman explained during a recent interview in the San Francisco offices of the women’s museum.
They discussed the opportunities and experiences that have shaped their generation of women, and noted bold moves some of their friends had already made in their lives, starting nonprofit organizations, working for social change, or just becoming involved in leadership roles in their communities.
“It dawned on us that there was something quite remarkable that connected all of these stories — a positive, empowered spirit that enabled women of our generation to engage fully with the world and to pursue goals and lifestyles that may not have been possible several decades ago,” Ms. Goldman writes in the introduction to the book that’s a component of the “Imagining Ourselves” project.
Yet, younger adults still seemed to live in the shadow of the far larger “baby boomer” generation. The question of how their ideas, concerns and visions for the world could be given a voice led to Ms. Goldman’s responding question: “What about an anthology?”
Evolution
Compiling a book of essays and other writings by young women would meet an important need, Ms. Goldman believed when she embarked on the project. “The story of my generation hadn’t been publicly recognized, and leaders not publicly identified,” she says.
In her studies and humanitarian work abroad in postwar Bosnia, Kenya and India, she learned that “to change a society, one must work through the culture.”
She had also worked “in the intersection of social change between art and media” as a developer of programming with WorldLink Television and as a leader of a film project that aimed to bring Jewish and Muslim groups in San Francisco together.
A volunteer with the International Museum of Women, Ms. Goldman decided to approach the museum with her book idea, and the organization enthusiastically embraced it, bringing her into the museum offices to work with staff and other volunteers, and later adding her to the staff.
Thinking the project would take one year, she enrolled in a doctorate program in social anthropology at Harvard, but recently took a leave from the program to complete what evolved into a multi-layered, intensely time-consuming enterprise.
Early on, as the momentum built and Ms. Goldman and a mostly volunteer team of women tried to solicit worldwide entries for the book, a realization took hold: The generation they were trying to spotlight is grounded in the world of images, and connected by technology.
So as the project developed, “We decided that we needed to address this generation in its own voice,” Ms. Goldman says. And the idea to create an online art exhibit was born.
But the book idea wasn’t jettisoned — far from it. With an assertively creative design and top-quality printing, the anthology features the art and writing of about 120 women from Asia and Europe, Latin and North America, the Middle East and Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Samoa.
Although most of the writers are unknown to the world at large, a few names will stand out, including writers Zadie Smith and Rebecca Walker, Karenna Gore Schiff, and composer/musician Ani DiFranco.
Global reality
Ms. Goldman acknowledges the limitations of a project giving voice to the one billion women in the targeted age group of her generation. In the introduction to the “Imagining Ourselves” anthology, she writes that the book’s perspectives “are mostly those of women who have benefited from the demographic shifts over the last few decades.
“By and large, they are the voices of women who are in the middle or upper-middle classes of their countries, women who have had access to education and technology; they are not the voices of the poor and underprivileged.”
Yet, she continues, the voices presented “represent an incredibly significant moment in the history of women’s lives, a moment that deserves to be recognized and celebrated.”
Karen Offen of Woodside, a member of the sponsoring International Museum of Women’s board of directors, was one of the project’s early supporters.
“What Paula is doing is … really so exciting,” she says. “She’s really making history with this project. It will become one of the (historical) artifacts at some point — it’s really a path-breaking project.”
Enter the museum
The online “Imagining Ourselves” exhibit is free to anyone with Internet access.
The exhibit, which will run from March 8 through June, will feature the works of hundreds of women, and will change monthly to address four themes:
** Love and relationships in a changing world
** Money: Young women in today’s economy
** Culture and conflict: Uniting women across boundaries
** The future: Taking action and charting a path for young women
There will be monitored online discussion forums and intergenerational dialogues. There will also be short films and audio clips.
To enter the museum, log on at imow.org.
There’s a link to Amazon.com on the site for those wishing to purchase a copy of the related “Imagining Ourselves” anthology, featuring the art and writings of some 120 women.
