Embassies and institutions have supported this exhibition from the beginning./ Photo: JDL
Juan D. Latorre. 25/09/2017
The Natural Sciences Museum of Madrid inaugurated, last week, the exhibition ‘Nobel Women’, dedicated to the life and work of 12 women recognized with the Award of the Swedish Academy, along with another two that almost got it: the Polish Irena Sendler and the Spanish Concha Espina.
Curated by Belén Yuste and Sonnia L. Rivas-Caballero, the exhibition pays tribute to Maria Salomea Sklodowska-Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie, Wangari Muta Maathai, Bertha von Suttner, Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf, Rita Levi-Montalcini, May-Britt Moser, Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, Carol Widney Greider, Ada Yonath, Nelly Sachs and Teresa de Calcuta.
The museum’s director, Santiago Merino, hoped that “this exhibition serves to break the glass ceiling preventing more women to get the awards they deserve”. Emilio Lora Tamayo, director of the CESIC, remembered that since 2001 “19 Nobel Prizes have been granted to women. If this proportion had been achieved in the last century, the prize would have been granted to more than a hundred and not only to 48”.
Belén Yuste congratulated the 11 embassies that have supported the exhibition and, especially, the Nobel Foundation of Stockholm “for achieving the historical rigour wished for the exhibition”.
Sweden’s Ambassador, Lars-Hjalmar, remembered the conversation he had, during an event about Marie Curie, with the curators of this exhibition and in which they agreed on the “little visibility that women winning the Nobel Prize had, and we thought about something to highlight that role”. Torunn Viste, minister counsellor of the Norwegian Embassy, pointed out that “this exhibition will contribute to bring closer to the public the work carried out by these women”.
Finally, the secretary of State for Research, Carmen Vela, emphasized the importance of this exhibition “to contribute to make things change, since only 48 women have been recognized with this award, which is 6% of the total, very few”.
