In December, the National Library of Lithuania hosted a photo exhibition “Portrait of a (Working) Mother” by Marina Cavazza and Eglė Kačkutė. The exhibition and the accompanying events invited visitors to look at the issues of migration, career and motherhood/ parenthood.
The exhibition consists of twenty-seven photographs—professional portraits of expatriate mothers and fathers from their everyday lives—and short interviews with them. The interviews focus on the problems faced by women and men, professional migrant workers, and the solutions to them. Using the visual language and sensitive and personal texts, the exhibition considers whether women and men have equal rights to career and childcare in the 21st century, when, by whom, what and for whom sacrifices are being made? How do women’s and men’s priorities change when they have children, and do culture, society and organizations support individual choices?
The topic was further developed in a discussion organized at the library. The participants were: Prof. Dalia Leinartė, historian, member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women; Dr Ieva Bisigirskaitė, gender studies specialist; Dr Giedrė Blažytė, a sociologist of migration and researcher at the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences; photographer Marina Cavazza; translator Jordana Gonzales Kruz; Dr Eglė Kačkutė, literary scholar, associate professor at the Department of French Philology at Vilnius University and D.
Giancarlo Russo, mathematician, head of the research team at the Life Sciences Centre at Vilnius University.