'Conquering poverty is an absolute requirement for sustainable development'. Poster for the campaign 'Empower Women Empower Earth', part of the United Nations Enivronmental Programme, 1995. Designed by Lolli Aboutboul; photograph by Lana Wong

A photographic image with wide border. Photograph is of a cobblestoned, covered walkway, scattered with dead leaves and other debris. A solitary wooden cart, toward the background, suggests that it might be a covered market at the end of the day. In the foreground a poorly dressed, overweight woman holding a plastic carrier bag stands and gazes into the litter at her feet as if searching for something; a man strides past in the opposite direction. A caption in red is overprinted. It reads: 'Opposite, Chanel black silk mix jacket $1,550, cheap and chic by Moschino black jersey dress $850, sunglasses bag and shoes from the Chanel boutique. Earrings from Photios Bros. Bracelet from Oh La La.' Beneath the image in smaller type is the caption:
Quotation: adaptation from Women's magazines. The title caption is below this. The poster is stamped with a circular logo of letters reading: Empower Women Empower Earth around the letters UNEP [for United Nations Environmental Programme] and the United Nations logo.

Given by Lolli Aboutboul

one poster from a set of 12 for the Campaign| 'Empower Women, Empower Earth' for the United Nations Environmental Programme, 1995. The museum has three posters from the set.

Lolli Aboutboul worked with the photographer Lana Wong to produce a set of 12 posters marking the Women's International Conference, Beijing, 1995. This was the fourth of a series of quinquennial World conferences on Women, (Mexico 1980, Copenhagen 1985, Nairobi, 1990). The posters were exhibited in Beijing at the time of the Conference and in London at the 'What Women Want' Festival at the Royal Festival Hall, in August, the same year. They were then distributed across Europe by the United Nations Environmental Programme and also shown in Nairobi in January 1997. This particular combination of text and image suggests the huge discrepancies in living standards between rich and poor women and something which might be ignored by men (the man in the image strides past and away from the woman, as she stands as if chained to the spot, apparently searching for the smallest grain of anything that might help her).

E.271-1998