Biographical exhibition ‘Concepción Gimeno: the cantora of women’.

Concepción Gimeno Gil or de Flaquer is one of the most important nineteenth-century feminists in the Spanish-speaking world. Born in Alcañiz (Teruel) in 1850, she was the director of three publications: La Ilustración de la Mujer (1873-1875) in Madrid, El Álbum de la Mujer (1883-1890) in Mexico and El Álbum Ibero Americano (1890-1909) in Madrid. The author of many feminist studies and essays, hundreds of newspaper articles and narrative texts, her enormous output is a fundamental part of trans-Hispanic feminism. In recognition of her fervent defence of women's education and the improvement of their legal and social status, Gimeno was the second woman to give a lecture at the Ateneo in Madrid (in 1890, after Pardo Bazán), and she was also the author of the first feminist lecture given there, El problema feminista (1903).

The exhibition, which traces the author's life and shows first editions of most of her works in dialogue with her journalistic texts, will coincide on 17th and 18th June with the International Conference ‘Opaque Violence and Agency in the Public Space. The Discourse of Women Writers in the Peninsular Women's Press 1848-1918", in which thirty-seven international researchers will present papers through which they will analyze, from different angles, the decisive role that Concepción Gimeno herself, along with other contemporary women writers such as Emilia Pardo Bazán and Concepción Arenal, played in beginning to fragment with their vital and professional practices the social canon that prevented them from leaving aside their roles of daughter, mother or wife to devote themselves instead to any work that did not exclusively circumscribe them to domestic care. 

The curator of the exhibition, Antonio Pedrós-Gascón, will conduct guided visits open to anyone interested on Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 at 19:30, as well as on Wednesday 19 at 11:00.

Coordination by

Antonio Francisco Pedrós-Gascón (curator) 

With the collaboration of 

Cultura Alcañiz; Alcañiz Ayuntamiento; Colorado State University; ADHUC-Teoria, Gènere, Sexualitat / Càtedra UNESCO Dones, Universitat de Barcelona; Grup de Recerca Consolidat Creació i pensament de les dones (2021 SGR 01097); PROYECTO Género, violencia y representación, PID2020-113138GB-I00, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades / Agencia Estatal de Investigación - MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033