Welcome to the UFM Lou Douglas Lecture Series
Lou Douglas Lecture Series on Public Issues
Speaker: Paula Allen
Paula Allen has been an 'activist with a camera' for more than two decades. She has concentrated on photographing women around the world in their courageous and often invisible confrontations with violence and oppression. Allen has documented women's determination in the pursuit of freedom, truth and justice. Her photographs have been widely published in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, The London Independent Magazine, Paris Match, Art in America, Mother Jones, O, The Oprah Magazine, People, and Marie Claire, among others.
"Against All Odds: Women Around the World Demand Justice" is a photographic presentation that focuses on women's courageous and often invisible confrontations with violence and oppression. This photo/lecture highlights personal stories in an historic context over three continents: South America, Asia and Africa. You will meet the women of Calama, Chile who, after the country's 1973 military coup, searched for 17 years in the desert until they found a mass grave containing the remains of their loved ones who were "disappeared" and killed. You will be introduced to the ”Comfort Women" of Asia, who broke 50 years of silence to tell the story of their sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. And you will learn the ongoing nightmare of the women and girls of The Democratic Republic of Congo, who despite being the target of a decade of genocide and rape, are still fighting for their lives. What unites the stories of these seemingly unrelated women is their bravery, will, and determination to demand justice against all odds and despite potentially grave consequences.