"Denouncing Violence Against Women" USC Shoah Foundation co-sponsors international poster exhibit for Genocide Awareness Week

Eighteen posters from around the world that cry out for an end to violence against women are the subject of Denouncing Violence Against Women, an exhibit at the USC Fisher Museum of Art. Part of USC's Genocide Awareness Week, the exhibit includes Holocaust witness testimony from the Visual History Archive of the USC Shoah Foundation. The exhibit is open to the public from April 8-21, 2013.

Denouncing Violence Against Women showcases artistic responses to violence against women during the Holocaust as well as in Armenia, Congo, Guatemala, Mexico, and Rwanda. The posters are organized by theme—Dehumanization, Individuality, Trauma, and Breaking Bonds—and confront such crimes as domestic violence, torture, and trafficking in addition to genocide.

The posters were provided by the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that gathers, preserves, and showcases international poster art that responds to the cry for social change. USC students Michelle Crisosto, Lauren Dodds, Helena Liikanen-Ranger and Amber Spinelli curated the exhibit as part of an art history class taught by Dr. Selma Holo, associate professor of art history and Director of the USC Fisher Museum of Art; Dr. Stephen D. Smith, Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation; and Dr. Dan Leshem, Association Director of Research for the USC Shoah Foundation. Laura Pomerantz, Ph.D. provided guidance regarding the relationship between art and genocide.

Denouncing Violence Against Women received additional support from Visions and Voices: The USC Arts and Humanities Initiative.