On Equal Terms:
Women in Construction 30 Years & Still Organizing

Jan. 26 - March 17, 2009

The exhibit On Equal Terms: Women in Construction 30 Years & Still Organizing celebrates 30 years of women in construction.

On Equal Terms, an installation by artist, poet and educator Susan Eisenberg, grew out of her effort to learn from tradeswoman pioneers about the struggle to bring women into the construction trades. The personal testimonies of the many women she has interviewed inform her work.

Federal policy changes in 1978 opened construction jobs and apprenticeship programs to women, with projections that women would make up 25 percent of the construction work force by now. Yet today women hold only about 2 percent of jobs in the building trades.

Eisenberg was one of the first women in the country to achieve journey-level status as a union electrician, and she worked on construction sites for 15 years. She is the author of We’ll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction, a New York Times Notable Book.

Her installation employs soft sculpture, found objects, poetry, story, photography, and audio to explore issues of power and social policy.

The public is invited to an opening reception from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 30, with a brief program at 6 p.m.  Area tradeswomen, whose voices and experiences animate the exhibit, will be available to the media.