There is a delay between when by Maliha Abidi the avatar flashes on the screen and connects to your audio. In those first silent seconds, a yellowish-green canvas is revealed leaning against the wall behind her. A crescent in the painted shape of a woman, a graphic rose tucked into dark waves of hair, trails from behind Abidi’s silhouette.
The woman’s silhouette is that of Madam Noor Jehan, an award-winning singer and actress who made waves as Pakistan’s first female film director, inspiring countless generations of women. Abidi partially outshines Jehan in the painting, which seems appropriate because, although she is in the early stages of her career as an artist-activist, they share a dogged prolificacy.
In the past fifteen months, the Pakistani-American scholar and founder of Women increase NFTs has conquered the Web3 community. Her collection of 10,000 portraits depicts imagined women imbued with a sense of power and purpose. Although fictional, they are meant to spark the imagination of a younger generation of women. Like much of her work, the portraits in Women Rise share a similar aesthetic: a vivid color palette, minimal shading, and graphic lines. But Women Rise is much more than art; the collection aims to raise funds and awareness for charities such as Malala Fund and the girl effect.
Since its launch in November 2021, Women Rise has ambitiously expanded from an extension of Abidi’s artistic practice to a more socially engaged platform that partners with other organizations, such as Qissa and CAMFED, that foster agency, equality, and equality. women’s education. What seems clear is that, like the audience she hopes to inspire, Abidi reminds herself through the work that what can be dreamed can also be manifested.
We sat down with Abidi to talk about art as a vehicle for education, the importance of representation, and the need for more women in STEM.
nft now: Social justice is a big part of your practice as an artist, author, and founder of Women Rise. What issues seem most important to you?
Maliha Abidi: When it comes to causes that are close to my heart, I believe that girls’ education is at the top. Well, I tend to talk about women’s rights and girls’ education. Then, connected to girls’ education, there are various other issues like mental health.
nft now: Do you find it difficult to focus on so many problems with your particular challenges?
BREAST: Yes, individually they are very important issues, but for me, they are still connected. For example, if you’re talking about women’s rights, you have to refer to girls’ education because there are currently 130 million girls out of school. If you’re talking about girls’ education, you have to talk about the impact of poverty in the period. If we’re talking about that, then you also need to take into account how childbearing age plays a role in all of this. I’m no expert on these topics, but I’m educating myself as I go. I want to use my art as a vehicle to learn and spread what I have learned.
nft now: When I watch Women Rise, I see portraits of women standing in their strength and embodying a wide range of identities. What does the idea of representation mean to you?
BREAST: What I heard was that you should be a doctor, engineer or lawyer. But in Pakistan, these careers are not high-paying jobs like they are in the US. If a girl is encouraged to be a doctor, it is so that she can get a good marriage proposal. In Pakistan, it is a phenomenon called “doctor-girlfriend phenomenon”. Your in-laws want a relationship to happen because you’re a doctor and that makes you more desirable, but when you get married they don’t allow you to practice your profession because your role has changed to that of a mother.
that’s why I created my books — because I was seeing a lot of these incredible women who are also in sports and art and are educators and activists. And yes, there are doctors, but on their terms. Representation can also open up that conversation within your family. I can say, ‘look at this amazing Pakistani woman who is a woman in sports.’ So it’s both an internal and an external dialogue.
nft now: Like you said, if you’re brought up on a dominant cultural narrative, a young woman might not even know what’s possible. As soon as you hear a story, whether through art, film or pop culture, that material has the potential to open doors in a person’s imagination. What has opened up in your imagination since the start of Women Rise?
BREAST: When Women Rise was first launched, I remember there weren’t many initiatives led by women. [NFT] projects or projects that represent women. I remember that only a few founding women paved the way. But I think at the time, it was also just about taking up space. There aren’t many communities with people around me who take up space in the crypto finance business. I wanted to create a project like Women Rise with a Pakistani team, but then have a community that was truly global. [allowing us to] represent women’s rights in many different settings and platforms.
nft now: One of your goals for Women Rise has been to encourage young women to pursue STEM fields. Could you tell me about your journey into neuroscience and the challenges you have faced?
BREAST: Currently I am no longer doing neuroscience because each space is very demanding. Balancing art and my studies was always difficult. I was a broke student, but then I wanted to create this book, and I also wanted to find time to create art.
Somehow, I was working weekends at an art store to qualify for the employee discount so I could buy the art supplies and the book, my artwork, and the train tickets so I could go to college for five days. a week. Around the same time, I opened this side business selling chocolate covered strawberries. […] around campus. It has always been very difficult to balance everything.
When it comes to STEM, we need more women in those fields. How come less than three percent of women get venture capital funding? How come that number is even lower for women of color?
We need to encourage women and girls from a very young age and create environments that are nurturing. When it comes to STEM, it’s one of the hardest places to survive, and the women who have paved the way need to constantly celebrate them. Through this celebration, we are, in a way, planting seeds so that more women can enter this space. But it’s not just women’s and girls’ responsibility to do that, it’s everyone’s responsibility.
