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| Visionary Edge honors women By Stacy Trevenon [ stacy@hmbreview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 11:16 AM PDT In honor of International Women’s Day, The Visionary Edge transformative arts group in Half Moon Bay hosts a presentation this weekend with Paola Gianturco, speaker, author, photographer and champion of women’s rights. It takes place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 29, at the train depot below the Johnston House in Half Moon Bay, and benefits the San Francisco-based nonprofit Global Fund for Women which provides grants to women in third-world countries so that they can start their own small businesses. Mill Valley resident Gianturco will show slides and share stories culled from 12 years documenting third-world women. She will also sign copies of her latest book, “Women Who Light the Dark.” “It is amazing to realize what is being done in other countries, and what yet remains to be done,” said Visionary Edge co-founder Reba Vanderpool. “This will provide local residents a view of what is needed and concrete ways in which they can help.” Born in Urbana, Ill., and a 1961 Stanford University graduate, Gianturco spent 35 years in advertising, public relations and marketing. Even then she supported women as senior vice president of a premier women-owned advertising agency, board member of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development and chair of the board of the Crafts Center in Washington D.C., which works with low-income women artisans in 79 countries. Upon retirement, her move into photography was influenced by her father Cesare Gianturco, a physician who retired and invented medical devices that helped people around the world, said Gianturco. “He really modeled for me two things,” she said from her San Francisco office. “You don’t need to stop at retirement age. That can be time to open a whole new world. And, if you’re going to use your life to make the world better, you should get on with it.” So she did, becoming a photojournalist at 55. Her first book, inspired by the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, was “In Her Hands: Craftswomen Changing the World,” (powerHouse Books, 2000.) In 2004, she published “Celebrating Women,” which will be exhibited by the Field Museum in Chicago through September. That was followed in 2006 with the bilingual book “Viva Colores! A Salute to the Indomitable People of Guatemala,” co-written with David Hill. Her newest, “Women Who Light the World,” published in September, is an in-depth look at women who face violence, sex trafficking, war, poverty, illiteracy, hunger, discrimination, disease, and use imagination to create solutions. Subjects include Moroccan women who write plays about women’s rights, Zimbabwean girls whose poetry shocks readers into fighting child rape, Vietnamese counselors who use the arts to help survivors of domestic violence, East Indian teachers who use puppets to help homeless children understand AIDS, Roma women in Slovakia who design postcards that provide education in the place of suspicion, and more. She has photographed soldiers to ambassadors, bishops to cabinet ministers, and indigenous babies around the world. Gianturco says her goal is understanding. “I have always dreamed that my books will help people understand each other more completely,” she said. “That is the precursor to people collaborating on the problems that face women and families everywhere.” Her images have appeared in Essence, Harper’s Bazaar (the Australian version,) New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post and other publications. She has appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” CNN, NPR and “Voice of America” programs, and lectured widely. Her work has been exhibited by the United Nations, U.S. Senate, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the International Museum of Women, and other international museums. She donates all book royalties to philanthropic projects related to each book’s content subject matter. Admission to her presentation Saturday with The Visionary Edge is a $15 minimum donation. For information, The Visionary Edge can be reached at 560-0200. |