Vhils

Featuring a wide array of iconic monuments from around the globe in representation of the remarkable diversity of human endeavour and creativity, it is centred by a portrait of Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (1891–1947), British politician, Member of Parliament, Minister of Education (the second woman to ever hold a position in the British cabinet), and campaigner for the rights of women and workers, for social justice, and education.

One of only eight women delegates present at the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, which resulted in the creation of the United Nations Charter, Wilkinson also chaired in the same year the international conference in London that led to the establishment of UNESCO.

By bringing her valuable, yet almost invisible contribution to the fore, Vhils’ intervention also seeks to highlight the significant contribution of the many women who, like her, were actively involved in the creation of UNESCO and the promotion of its ideals. The artwork also functions as a universal representation that aims to humanise the space with someone all of us can identify with, while symbolically making visible the invisible that lies beneath the layers of our material culture.