Fall 2004, Vol. 12, No. 2 (requires Adobe Acrobat)

Strategic Actions: Women, Power, and Gender Norms: An Interview with Holly McCammon and Cecelia Tichi

2004/2005 Warren Center Fellows Strategic Actions: Women, Power, and Gender Norms

Don Quixote: An Anniversary Celebration

2004/2005 Warren Center Seminars

Joe Klein to Present Harry C. Howard Jr. Lecture

Artist Ana Flores to Install Exhibit at Monroe Carell Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt

We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” Eastern Regional Summer Institute for Teachers

Rethinking Inequalities and Differences in Medicine

2004 Summer Graduate Student Fellows

Artist Ana Flores to Install Exhibit at Monroe Carell Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt

In conjunction with the Warren Center’s 2002/2003 Fellows Program theme “Medicine, Health, and Society,” artist Ana Flores visited campus to begin preparations for a permanent exhibit to be installed at Vanderbilt’s Monroe Carell Children’s Hospital. Ana Flores is a sculptor, environmentalist, and community arts advocate who lives in southern Rhode Island and Nova Scotia, Canada. Her work is shown internationally and is in private, corporate, and institutional collections throughout the United States. For twenty years she has been an artist-in-residence in schools, universities, and public institutions. The project at Vanderbilt is cosponsored by the Medical Center’s Program in Cultural Enrichment and the Warren Center.

Flores’s piece for Vanderbilt is a collaborative project involving participants in the Medical Center’s GirlForce Program. GirlForce is a health-risk prevention program for adolescent and pre-adolescent girls. It targets the leading causes of chronic disease and premature preventable death in women by promoting exercise, healthy eating habits, smoking abstinence, and positive body image. The program with visiting artist Flores was entitled “Athena: Strength and Beauty” and allowed the participants to explore girls’ concepts of beauty, strength, body image, and nature.

On Saturday, March 20th, a group of twenty-five girls, ages nine through thirteen, gathered at Centennial Park from 8:15 a.m. until noon. The morning included an introduction to the Parthenon and the statue of Athena by Classical Studies Professor Barbara Tsakirgis. Susan McDonald, director of GirlForce, led the participants in a sword dance in front of Athena, and talked to the girls about the importance of physical exercise and nutrition. The program also included a discussion led by Ana Flores on the history of goddesses.

The girls then spent the remaining two hours creating “goddess boxes” which are meant to be symbolic metaphors for each participant of their own goddess qualities and strengths. Participants also made two small personal meditation bundles that represent their dreams and hopes. One bundle from each participant will be a part of the final work of art that Flores is designing and plans to install at the Children’s Hospital in the spring of 2005.

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For more information, contact the Center's executive director, Mona C. Frederick.

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