Welcome to Monumental Women in New York City’s Central Park
Women break the bronze ceiling worldwide
Swiss artist Sarah Montani is committed to more women's memorials and breaks through the bronze ceiling. The "glass ceiling" is a metaphor for the phenomenon that women and members of certain population groups do not rise to leadership positions. The "bronze ceiling" describes the fact that there are few monuments to important women. In parks and public squares, there are usually only monuments to white men. Accomplished female rulers, researchers, artists and politicians remain invisible - despite impressive life achievements. This is currently changing. Monumental Women is the organization that brought the first-ever statue honoring real women into New York City’s Central Park in the Park’s 167-year history. Sarah Montani kicks off her World Tour with a gigantic sculpture of a woman in the centre of Central Park.
Namita Luthra (left) and Brenda Berkman in Central Park Credit: Eileen Macdonald
Girl Scout Phoebe Bergan, 10, along with her group, demonstrated in New York's Central Park in 2016 with a placard reading "Where are the women?" "I want to help other girls have a role model to look up to," she said. Until then, statues in the famous park all featured men, a dog or fictional women like "Alice in Wonderland." Namita Luthra – a women's rights activist – was so moved by these young girls’ action that her daughter’s Girl Scout troop sold cookies and collected donations to help put up this first statue of real historic women in Central Park. "It shocked the girls that there was a statue dedicated to Balto a sled dog, but not a single statue of an historic woman”, Namita says. Brenda Berkman has also been full of dedication to this project. "In primary school I was devouring children’s history books; they only featured white men. I said to myself then, that can't be – women had to have made important contributions too. From then on, I wanted to tell and capture the history of women. Women were systematically ignored and left out of history writing. And that's still the case: I'm a firefighter, and along with other brave women, I was one of the first responders at the World Trade Center, in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Women firefighters' efforts were not recognized, unlike the efforts of our male colleagues." Namita Luthra says, "We all deserve to experience memorials to real women. It can be moving to take in great monuments. It is important that we can also experience monuments to women and people of color whose lives were fascinating, worth learning from and acknowledging. Monuments to diverse women serve as greenlights to women and girls today to pursue their work and ambitions.“ $1.5 million in private donations were raised, and the statue, which weighs 36 tons and is made of bronze, was created by sculptor Meredith Bergmann. Then, on August 2020, on the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the US, the Women’s Right Pionieers Monuments honoring three 19th-century women's rights activists – Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – was unveiled in Central Park.
Sarah Montani starts her World Tour with her mobile sculptures right here: She wants to use augmented reality women's sculptures to draw attention to the Invisible Women in public spaces. "I want to create 'fairer' realities. What connects us all is that we all grew in women's bellies. We are also united by the universal claim of human rights that all human beings are born 'free and equal in dignity and rights.'"
Sculpture access
The sculpture is situated at the very heart of Central Park, marking the most central point within its expanse. To see the sculpture, simply retrieve your smartphone and visit the website https://takeover-art.com. Once there, navigate to the section dedicated to Central Park in New York. Now you can see and enjoy the sculpture. More information about the the World Tour+ Monuments here: sarahmontani.com/worldtour
You can learn more at www.monumentalwomen.org
The sculpture can be viewed in this radius in Central Park.
Namita Luthra is a champion of women's rights. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Monumental Women and the President's Council of the New York Hall of Science. Ms. Luthra was a senior attorney at the ACLU Women's Rights Project for many years, where she worked in litigation, advocacy, and public education to advance the rights of women and girls. She co-authored the book The Rights of Women and successfully tried jury cases against gender discrimination in federal court. Previously, Ms. Luthra was an attorney with the Office of the Appellate Defender, where she represented indigent clients in state and federal courts.
Brenda Berkman has challenged discrimination against girls and women her whole life. As a child, her application to the Little League baseball program was rejected solely because of her gender. In 1977, the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) allowed women to apply for the firefighter test for first time. Although she had earned a Master of Arts in history and was in her last year in New York University Law School, Berkman applied to take the new firefighter exam. When she and every other woman applicant failed the new exam, Brenda sued New York City for giving an exam that was not job-related and discriminated against women -- and won. Brenda Berkman was the first participant in the subsequent new testing process and passed. For the next ten years, the women in that first group remained the only women firefighters in the FDNY. After retirement from the Fire Department, Berkman became a printmaker. Her art includes a series of lithographs that depict the rebuilding of the World Trade Center Thirty-six Views of One World Trade Center.