International Women’s Day: Making the Invisible Visible
Pawlet Brookes MBE. CEO and Artistic Director for Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.
Recognition is not simply about celebration. It is about visibility, justice and ensuring that women’s stories remain central to our cultural and political histories.
Every year on International Women’s Day, celebrated on 8 March, people across the world recognise the achievements of women and renew calls for gender equality. Yet the significance of the day goes beyond celebration. It offers an opportunity to reflect on whose stories are remembered, whose contributions are recognised and whose voices remain marginalised within cultural and political life.
At Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, International Women’s Day provides a moment to consider the relationship between arts, culture and politics, and the role that cultural institutions play in making visible histories that have too often been overlooked. As part of this year’s programme, we are delighted to welcome Lelia Howe, whose work reflects the powerful intersection between creative practice, cultural leadership and political discourse.
By bringing together artists, scholars and communities, events such as this highlight the ways in which culture can create space for dialogue, reflection and change.
Culture, Representation and Power
The relationship between culture and politics has long been recognised by scholars and historians. Cultural production is never neutral; it reflects the structures and inequalities within society and can either reinforce or challenge dominant narratives (Hall, Nixon & Evans, 1997). The stories that are told – and those that remain absent – shape how societies understand themselves.
For Black women, artistic and cultural practice has frequently served as a means of resistance and self-definition. Through literature, visual art, performance and dance, Black women have created spaces in which their experiences, histories and identities could be articulated in ways that challenge marginalisation (Mercer, 2016).
Understanding culture as a site of power therefore helps explain why representation matters. It also helps us understand why the histories of Black women are inseparable from broader struggles for political and social justice.
Within Britain, Black women have historically navigated intersecting forms of marginalisation shaped by race, gender and class. Political activist Claudia Jones famously argued that Black women experienced “triple oppression” through racism, sexism and economic inequality (Jones, 1949). Her analysis laid an early foundation for Black feminist thinking and highlighted the interconnected nature of these struggles.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the concept of political Blackness emerged as a framework of solidarity among African, Caribbean and South Asian communities resisting racism and structural inequality (Sivanandan, 1990). Within this movement, Black women played a central role in shaping political and intellectual debates. Activists such as Olive Morris, alongside organisations including the Brixton Black Women’s Group, foregrounded the experiences of Black women and challenged both racial discrimination and gender inequality within broader liberation movements. Their activism helped articulate a distinctly Diasporic feminist perspective, recognising that struggles against racism, sexism and colonial legacies were deeply interconnected.
At the same time, figures such as Darcus Howe and the Race Today Collective helped cultivate a political environment in which activism, journalism and cultural production intersected. In this context, culture became a critical space through which questions of identity, belonging and resistance could be explored. The arts therefore became more than forms of creative expression; they became tools for articulating Diasporic identity and challenging dominant narratives about race, gender and nationhood (Mirza, 1997).
Recognition and the Importance of Cultural Memory
Understanding these histories helps explain why International Women’s Day remains so important. While the day celebrates achievements, it also highlights the ongoing need to address inequalities in representation, visibility and recognition. Across the cultural sector, research continues to demonstrate disparities in funding, commissioning and leadership opportunities for women artists (Brook, O’Brien & Taylor, 2020). For Black women, these challenges are often intensified by structural racism within cultural institutions and creative industries.
Recognition therefore becomes more than symbolic, it becomes political. Acknowledging women’s contributions disrupts patterns of historical exclusion and challenges the narratives that have shaped cultural memory.
The concept of archival justice highlights the importance of documenting histories that have been overlooked or marginalised (Caswell, 2021). Cultural institutions therefore play a crucial role in ensuring that women’s stories are preserved and shared.
Making the Invisible Visible
This commitment to visibility sits at the heart of Serendipity’s work. One example is the project 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark, which celebrates the achievements and contributions of Black women across Britain. The project highlights women whose work has shaped communities locally, nationally and internationally, leaders in the arts, education, activism, politics and community development. Through portraiture and storytelling, the project functions both as an archive and as an act of recognition.
Too often, the achievements of Black women have been under-documented or excluded from traditional historical narratives. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall reminds us that representation is fundamental to how societies construct meaning; what is made visible becomes part of the story a nation tells about itself (Hall, Nixon & Evans, 1997).
Projects such as 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark therefore act as a form of archival intervention, challenging historical omissions and asserting the central role of Black women in shaping Britain’s cultural and social landscape. Building on this work, Serendipity has expanded the idea of recognition through Making the Invisible Visible: 365 Black Women, an ongoing initiative documenting the lives and achievements of Black women across the African Diaspora. By highlighting one woman for each day of the year, the project creates a living archive that expands the historical record and repositions Black women at the centre of cultural memory.
This work also connects to Serendipity’s wider heritage programme and initiatives such as Black Heritage Voices, which explore how Black histories are preserved, interpreted and shared through research, publishing and public dialogue.
Reimagining Tomorrow
International Women’s Day is therefore not only about reflection but also about imagining the future. By creating spaces where art, scholarship and activism intersect, Serendipity continues to explore how cultural institutions can contribute to wider conversations about representation, justice and historical memory. Recognising the contributions of women, particularly those whose voices have historically been overlooked, is not simply an act of celebration. It is part of a broader commitment to building a more inclusive cultural landscape in which diverse histories and perspectives are visible and valued.
In this sense, making the invisible visible is both a cultural responsibility and a political act. It ensures that women’s stories remain central to our understanding of the past while also shaping how we reimagine tomorrow.
References
Brook, O., O’Brien, D. and Taylor, M. (2020) Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Caswell, M. (2021) Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work. Abingdon:: Routledge.
Hall, S., Nixon, S. and Evans, J. (1997) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications.
Jones, C. (1949) ‘An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!’. Political Affairs. Volume 28, No. 6. pp. 51-67.
Mercer, K. (2016) Travel & See: Black Diaspora Art Practices Since the 1980s. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mirza, H. S. (1997) Black British Feminism: A Reader. London: Routledge.
Sivanandan, A. (1990) Communities of Resistance: Writings on Black Struggles for Socialism. London: Verso Books.
