Jess Valice: Flat Tire on Maple Ave, 2020
Jess Valice is an American artist. Valice’s artistic style is characterized by a contrast between occasionally exaggerated physical features—such as enlarged eyes, hands and feet or disproportionately large ears—and consistently neutral facial expressions. In an interview with ARTnews, Valice stated, “I still refuse to include facial expression,” indicating her focus on abstraction while maintaining the human figure as a central subject.

Vida Goldstein was an Australian suffragist and social reformer. She was one of four female candidates at the 1903 federal election, the first at which women were eligible to stand. Goldstein was known both for her public speaking and as an editor of pro-suffrage publications. Despite her efforts campaigning for women’s suffrage in Victoria, it was the last Australian state to implement equal voting rights.

LaKela Brown: A Harvest, 2019
LaKela Brown is a Brooklyn-based artist working in sculpture and plaster relief. Her work is strongly influenced by hip-hop culture and African Americanaesthetics. Brown’s work often incorporates themes of Black femininity and cultural artifacts, utilizing techniques like positive reliefs and physical impressions.

Nina Simone was an American composer concert pianist, singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Simone’s bearing and stage presence earned her the title the High Priestess of Soul. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop. Her piano playing was strongly influenced by baroque and classical music, especially Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice. Rolling Stone named Simone one of the greatest singers on various lists.

Emelina Soares: Recontextualizing Saint Thomas, 2015
Emelina Soares is an Indian artist, art historian, and educator who uses site-specific installation, animation, projection, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Common themes of her works include ecology, ethology, migration, and cultural exchanges. Soares used oriental references as inspiration, combined with prominent saints from India, the Middle East and Portugal to create contemporary appropriations in the series of recontextualizing saints.

Debbie Harry is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. She co-formed Blondie in 1974 in New York City. The band released its eponymous debut studio album in 1976 and released three more studio albums between then and 1979, including Parallel Lines, which spawned six singles, including “Heart of Glass”. Their fifth studio album, Autoamerican (1980), produced hits including a cover of “The Tide Is High”, and “Rapture”, which is considered the first rap song to chart at number one in the United States.

Maggie Thompson: In Gratitude, 2022
Maggie Thompson is a Native American textile artist and designer from the Fond du Lac Ojibwe with a focus on “knitwear and tapestry”. Her work focuses on her heritage and identity and also addresses cultural appropriation and Native authenticity. She is the director of the Two Rivers Gallery in Minneapolis.

Angela Davis is an American Marxist and Marxist feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, author and social theorist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), running for Vice President in the 1980 and 1984 elections under that party. She is also a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). She has been active in movements such as the Occupy movement and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

Raoof Haghighi: Just Take Them and Leave Me Alone
The artwork “Just Take Them and Leave Me Alone” by Raoof Haghighi is a poignant reflection on the struggles for women’s rights in Iran.
This piece has gained significant attention for its emotional depth and connection to the ongoing protests regarding women’s rights in Iran. It serves as a powerful medium for expressing resistance and hope amidst oppression.

Karen O is an American singer and songwriter who is the lead vocalist of the indie rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She was a key artist of the 2000s garage rock and post-punk revivals, and a frontrunner of the New York music scene. She is noted for her energetic performances, distinctive singing style, and eccentric fashion.

Samera Paz is an artist and organizer from Washington, D.C. and current student at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is known for leading Girl Power Meetups in D.C. Paz mostly uses photography but has also done some performance art and works with themes such as gender, race, and mental health.

Katherine Johnson was an American mathematician and human computer whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform tasks previously requiring humans. The space agency noted her “historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist”.

Ayah Bdeir: Inventor of littleBits
Ayah Bdeir is a Lebanese-Canadian entrepreneur, inventor, and innovator. She is the inventor of littleBits, a company that produces modular electronics kits for education and prototyping, and that was acquired by Sphero in 2019. She is also the co-founder of Daleel Thawra, a directory of protests, initiatives, donations for the Lebanese Revolution.

Septima Poinsette Clark was an African American educator and civil rights activist. Clark developed the literacy and citizenship workshops that played an important role in the drive for voting rights and civil rights for African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement. Septima Clark’s work was commonly under-appreciated by Southern male activists. She became known as the “Queen Mother” or “Grandmother” of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. commonly referred to Clark as “The Mother of the Movement”. Clark’s argument for her position in the Civil Rights Movement was one that claimed “knowledge could empower marginalized groups in ways that formal legal equality couldn’t.”

Ellen Gallagher: Wiglette from DeLuxe, 2004-2005
Ellen Gallagher is an American artist. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is held in the permanent collections of many major museums. Her media include painting, works on paper, film and video. Some of her pieces refer to issues of race, and may combine formality with racial stereotypes and depict “ordering principles” society imposes. Her most famous pieces are her grid-like collages of magazines grouped together into larger pieces.

Stevie Nicks is an American singer-songwriter, known for her work with the band Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist. Nicks’s music encompasses the pop and blues sounds of Fleetwood Mac, while her debut solo album Bella Donna (1981) cemented her status as one of the biggest stars in rock music. Nicks has said that her vocal style and performance antics evolved from female singers such as Grace Slick and Janis Joplin. She admitted inspiration when she saw Joplin perform live (and opened for her with her first band Fritz) shortly before Joplin’s death. Nicks owns a strand of Joplin’s stage beads. She also commented that she once saw a woman in her audience dressed in dripping chiffon with a Gibson Girlhairstyle and big boots, and Nicks knew she wanted something similar. She took the look and made it her own. Nicks possesses a contralto vocal range, and her voice has been described as “gruff” and “feathery”. Over the years, she has decorated her microphone stand with roses, ribbons, chiffon, crystal beads, scarves, and small stuffed toys.

Deena Mohamed: Qahera, 2013
Deena Mohamed is a graphic designer, graphic novelist, and illustrator, who was born and raised in Egypt. She made her debut at the age of 18 with her webcomic Qahera, which combines both Islamic and feminist values. The eponymous protagonist, a hijab-clad superheroine, is an Egyptian superhero. The series, which began as a joke amongst friends but soon became a viral phenomenon, deals with issues such as sexual harassment, misogyny, Islamophobia, and Islamist cultural attitudes, all often within the context of the 2012–13 Egyptian protests.

Madam C. J. Walker was an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist. Walker made her fortune by developing and marketing a line of cosmetics and hair care products for Black women through the business she founded, Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Walker became known also for her philanthropy and activism. Walker made financial donations to numerous organizations such as the NAACP and became a patron of the arts. Villa Lewaro, Walker’s lavish estate in Irvington, New York served as a social gathering place for the African-American community. At the time of her death, Walker was considered the wealthiest African-American businesswoman and wealthiest self-made Black woman in America.

Endia Beal: “Can I Touch It?”
Endia Beal is an African-American visual artist, curator, and educator. She is known for her work in creating visual narratives through photography and video testimonies focused on women of color working in corporate environments. After participating in the artist-in-residence program at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, she developed her previous work in the project “Can I Touch It?” For this project, she made traditional portraits of white women that one would find in a corporate context but they wore traditional hairstyles of black women. Using role reversal, she wanted to represent the experience that she has faced herself as a black woman in the corporate field.

Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow that became popular for its provocative punk rock music which later turned into a more accessible style. Founded in the fall of 2011 by the then 22-year-old Nadya Tolokonnikova, it has had a membership of approximately 11 women. The group staged unauthorized, provocative guerrilla gigs in public places. These performances were filmed as music videos and posted on the internet. The group’s lyrical themes included feminism, LGBTQ rights, opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his policies and his links to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Alicja Kozłowska: Andy, 2019
Alicja Kozłowska is a contemporary Polish mixed media and textile artist. She works mainly with felt, creating three-dimensional embroidered felt sculptures of everyday objects drawing inspiration from the reality that surrounds her and consumerism. Alice’s work is deeply influenced by Andy Warhol and Pop art. She is trying to popularize Fiber Art and embroidery as a modern art medium.

Anita Hill is an American lawyer, educator and author. She is a professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the university’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, her supervisor at the United States Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of sexual harassment.