Kelowna, B.C.’s, Laurel Packinghouse is buzzing with energy for a unique International Women’s Day celebration, for which the Kelowna Museums Society brought in experts on women in art and entomology.
“Kelowna Museums is really dedicated to finding those stories that matter and how do we make history new again,” said Kelowna Museums executive director Linda Digby.
“International Women’s Day is an opportunity to shift our curatorial gaze to women and to look for those stories that matter today and inspire us today.”
To do just that, Digby has brought two curators from the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, B.C. to highlight the work of women in the arts and sciences.
Curator of Art and Images India Young spoke of Summerland, B.C., artist Katja Krahnstoever, who moved to the Okanagan in the 1920s, where she lived until she died in 1987.
“She was a textile artist, so she worked in a very interesting form of textile. It’s not weaving and it’s not embroidery,” said Young.
“She created portraiture and genre scenes with her work, which is very hard to do.”
While Young digs into the past to highlight Krahnstoever, her colleague Joel Gibson, curator of entomology, brings women working that discipline to light.
“It’s also important because anytime we shine the light somewhere where perhaps it hasn’t been shone in the past we learn something new and something remarkable.”
International Women’s Day was first celebrated in Austria, Denmark Germany and Switzerland on March 19, 1911.