A TIMELY ENDEAVOR

Victoria Vesna, Wired f-e-mail USA	Evelyn Jacob Jaffe, Liberated Woman USA	Alice Hutchins, Another Play-Thing USA

Elena Siff, Global Vision USA

I am prouder than ever before for being a woman. I could feel the women whispering, like clocks ticking, like all these wild, intentional undone heartbeats. I will tell everyone.

Valentina Grup-Kruip - Poet

 

Pilar Flores (WBB Ecuador curator) and guest, Thomas Svoboda (Austria)

Through the collective efforts of Women Beyond Borders artists and curators, a beautifully simple idea has been transformed into a profound project that extends literally and symbolically far beyond physical and conceptual borders.

A very timely endeavor, WBB will document women's visions at the end of a century marked by their struggle to find their rights and voices. The exhibition is a celebration of this progress and a movement forward with one another on a global level. It is also particularly important in that it cuts across all bordersÐphysical, political, religious, racial.

The care and work that went into transforming simple, inexpensive boxes into compelling and affecting objects must be seen to be believed. WBB will engage and affect people as it makes its way around our world.

Nancy Doll - former Director Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum

There is no hierarchy in this exhibition. We are all creating a piece from the same inexpensive pine box and there is a true sense of supporting one another. We are women artists of all ages, from all economic backgrounds and with varying degrees of professional reputation in the art world. As this project expands and dialogue with other international artists increases, it is apparent that there is a vital stream which is flowing among us as the exhibition continues its epic voyage

Ciel Bergman, Grief Repair USA

Elena Mary Siff - WBB co-founder

A small box was given to me. I had to take a stand on what that box should mean. The more I worked on it, the more condensed the energy became. It came to mean a squared world of love and death in a 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" x 2" space. It was like atomic energy, my life condensed. When my box took its place among all the other atomic reactions of love, despair, joy, fun and fear, it was such a reaffirming commitment to living and being a women, that I felt the room explode with all the creative energy that was present.

Saritha Margon - WBB artist

The exhibition has been created in a female way, and has been very successful in this regard. What has been accomplished in this project is a real model of how the feminine process works. The extent of this exhibition would never have occurred without give-and-take, without collaboration.

Beverly Decker - WBB artist

Darlene Nguyen-Ely, Separation USA/Vietnam

The most far-reaching exhibition of the year was "Women Beyond Borders," a reaffirmation that good things come in small packages. Small wooden boxes which were sent to women around the world came back as works of art, filled with meanings from politics to motherhood to feminism to pure art.

Joan Crowder - Santa Barbara News Press, 1995

Women Beyond Borders is about dialogue. It's a gathering together of women so they can identify themselves, which is, speak for themselves. It is an opportunity for reclaiming identity on a global scale by looking at the codes of self imaging in various cultures. The importance of this action in a global society cannot be underestimated. Dialogue, which begins with the silent speaking for themselves, expressing who they are, their experience or their desires, opens an avenue for exchange and communication. It is an opportunity to alter and inflect the ongoing dialogue of signs and symbols that seek to define and refine who we are. It is in a very real sense a revolutionary act.

Anne Sager, Opportunity Gap USA

In America we have become accustomed to women speaking out, having our words weighed, our presence recognized. Although in truth, this recognition is still mostly confined to white, upper and middle class women, still the general perception exists that all women are entitled to this kind of presence in the world. But this is not the experience of women internationally. And certainly not of its women artists

Women Beyond Borders is a step in undoing the isolation and hopelessness of silence. It is not a panacea, a goal or a band-aid. It is simply a step. Next will be the visits between artists in various countries, the letters and the Internet communications. More self exploration, expansion of presence, and confirmations of global and community importance will follow these interpersonal communications. Although we are invited to witness these exchanges by viewing the various exhibitions, unless we actively join the discussions most will be invisible to us.

Darlene Nguyen-Ely, Separation USA/Vietnam

Documentation will never fully reveal what this dialogue will mean to the participants. That is to be expected and in no way diminishes what this gathering together will signify to the world. Because every revolution is people. Not crowds, or movements or armies, but individuals coming to a common understanding that they have power. That they can change the world. And it always begins with knowing who we are.

Suvan Geer, Artist, Writer - LA Times/Art Week

Evelyn Jacob-Jaffe and Frank Serena installing exhibition at CAF	Elisse Pogofsky-Harris (WBB artist) visiting with Nomi Wind from Israel
Elena Siff - WBB Artist/Co-founder, Lorraine Serena - WBB Founder, and Beverly Decker - WBB Artist	Paulina Wallenburg-Olsson, Jan Nottingham, and Sharon Graves at a reception for visiting artists
Tamarind Rossetti-Johnson presenting her completed box to WBB	Lynn Stewart, WBB artist, Anita Roddick, owner Body Shops and Dr. Chérie Carter Scott viewing WBB creations in Santa Barbara
Jenna Reagan Drammer playing the music box from Anna Lamuniere	Reception Dinner for WBB/Austria participants attending the opening of WBB in Santa Barbara. Beverly Decker, Ingeborg Pock (Austria), Eva Ursprung (Austria), Lorraine Serena, Saritha Margon

Ingeborg Pock and Eva Ursprung WBB organizers and artist participants, visiting from Graz, Austria