Pandora’s BoxX Project: Reshaping the Narrative of Women in Art

Pandora’s BoxX Project is a growing photographic record of women artists, curators, writers, and cultural practitioners—cis, trans, and non-binary—who have helped shape the art world from the 1960s and ’70s to today. With over 300 portraits completed toward a goal of 360, the project maps a shared history across generations: one rooted in creative force, cultural memory, and the quiet power of refusal.

The portraits span six decades of cultural and political change—from the bold idealism of the feminist and civil rights movements, through the sharp critiques of the ’80s and ’90s, to the layered, often conflicted realities shaping the present. Each image marks a moment in the evolving story of women’s art—what it reflects, what it challenges, and what it makes possible.

Many of the artists who helped shift the culture are now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Their work reshaped not just art history, but the very idea of what a creative life could be—often without recognition or support. At the same time, younger generations are building on that foundation in bold, expansive ways—bridging gaps, questioning systems, and refusing easy narratives. Pandora’s BoxX brings them together in one unfolding record.

Built person to person, gaze to gaze, Pandora’s BoxX isn’t about canonizing a few names—it’s about honoring the many. It holds space for artists whose lives and work don’t fit into simple categories—for those whose identities, like their art, resist being pinned down.

Often overlooked, women have shaped the world not by accident, but by design—through vision, persistence, and refusal. Pandora’s BoxX reaches beyond the art world to ask: Who gets remembered? What gets preserved? And how do personal mythologies complicate—or rewrite—the stories we’ve been told?

Each portrait is made simply: natural light, no assistants, often in a space chosen by the subject. There’s no imposition—just a kind of improvised direction, shaped by trust and how someone shows up. Though the photos are shot in color, they’re rendered in black and white—iconic, direct, and better suited to the wide range of environments where these portraits take shape.

From the start, I called it the Pandora’s BoxX Project. The double X is intentional—a kiss, a refusal, a myth rewritten.

“You row forward looking back, and telling this history is part of helping people navigate toward the future. We need a litany, a rosary, a sutra, a mantra, a war chant for our victories. The past is set in daylight, and it can become a torch we can carry into the night that is the future.” Rebecca Solnit,‘Hope In The Dark’

“WOMEN MAKE ART HISTORY”, Guerrilla Girls

“Prodigy is at its’ essence adaptability, and persistent, positive, obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all.” Octavia Butler,’Earthseed’