Curating Her Stories Untold: Art, Activism, and Womanhood
Her Stories Untold is more than an exhibition; it is an interrogation of history and a celebration of resilience. Curated by Virginia Damtsa, in partnership with Annie Lennox’s The Circle, the inaugural show at Town Hall brings together international artists to explore how women have been portrayed, silenced, and reimagined. From Jonathan Yeo’s portraits to Conrad Shawcross’s sculpture, discover how art can challenge the narratives we think we know.
Art as Disruption and Discovery
By Virginia Damtsa, Director of Visual Art
I have always believed that art is a vehicle—for thought, for exploration, for introspection, and for pleasure. It is a space where we pause, feel, and reflect; where we record who we are now and leave traces of who we have been. Art does not simply records and create history—it questions it, disrupts it, and expands it. It asks us to look again at what we think we know, and to sit with what remains unresolved.
Curating an exhibition, for me, is the act of storytelling. It is about creating constellations of ideas, opening new narratives, and unfolding worlds that feel unfamiliar or familiar yet demand deeper attention. An exhibition should not offer easy answers; it should invite conversation, tangle with complexities, and open spaces for dialogue. It should challenge us as much as it comforts us.
Virginia Damtsa visits Jonathan Yeo in his studio
Defining Womanhood at Town Hall
Town Hall offers precisely this kind of platform—one rooted in openness, civic exchange, and collective presence. For my first curated exhibition here, I wanted to begin with a subject that is both urgent and timeless: women, their stories, and the spaces where those stories have been silenced, overlooked, misunderstood, or left untold.
Her Stories Untold is an exploration of what it means to be a woman today—and historically. What does strength look like? Where do we search for prototypes of female power, resilience, and wisdom? Who defines them, and who is excluded from those definitions? The exhibition embraces the multiplicity of womanhood, acknowledging lived experience, self-identification, and the intersections of gender, culture, race, and power.
The question of authorship sits at the heart of this exhibition. Who has the power to narrate, preserve, and circulate women’s stories? And what happens when those narratives are reclaimed, reimagined, or authored anew? From iconic global figures to intimate moments of inner life, the works presented unfold across multiple perspectives, revealing the complexity, vulnerability, and richness of womanhood.
Artist Wen Wu with Virginia Damtsa
A Natural Alliance: Partnering with The Circle
This project took on a deeper resonance when, during an invitation to the launch of Annie Lennox’s book, I encountered her charity, The Circle. Dedicated to women’s rights and the empowerment of women across nations, cultures, and communities, The Circle’s ethos aligned instinctively with the soul of this exhibition. Art, I believe, carries a higher responsibility: not only to celebrate creativity, but also to illuminate injustice and provoke awareness. This collaboration felt both natural and necessary.
In partnership with The Circle—founded by Annie Lennox in 2008—Her Stories Untold connects artistic practice with real-world action. The Circle brings together global feminists, creatives, and allies committed to building a fairer world for women and girls. Their mission grounds the exhibition’s poetic and conceptual inquiries in urgent social realities.
Annie Lennox, founder of The Circle, whose mission is to champion a fairer world for women and girls
Visibility, Silence, and Form
The exhibition brings together leading artists from the UK and internationally, working across portraiture, textiles, photography, sculpture, painting, and digital media. Together, they examine how women have been portrayed, honoured, erased, celebrated, or reimagined across time and cultures. The works speak of visibility and silence, ambition and care, memory and resistance.
Highlights include Jonathan Yeo’s celebrated portrait of Malala Yousafzai—a universal symbol of courage, education, and female empowerment—alongside his portraits of Lily Cole as Helen of Troy, Sienna Miller during pregnancy, and Grayson Perry’s alter ego, Claire. Rebecca Fontaine-Wolf’s photo-digital paintings explore the female body, identity, and transformation across media. Wen Wu’s luminous portraits present women in moments of introspection, often accompanied by books—symbols of knowledge and self-determination. Richard Wathen’s enigmatic portraits evoke psychological depth and timeless ambiguity, while Poppy de Havilland introduces a fresh, contemporary voice into the conversation.
Carolina Mazzolari’s embroidered textile works map emotion, femininity, and the body through tactile processes, while Bonolo Kavula reimagines printmaking through thread and punched Shweshwe fabric, weaving personal and collective histories into rhythmic abstraction. Abe Odedina’s vibrant portraits of African women draw on Yoruba mythology and Afro-Brazilian spirituality, celebrating dignity, beauty, and female power.
DACS by Carolina Mazzolari
Girl Reading (Malala Yousafzai) by Jonathan Yeo
Conrad Shawcross presents a smaller version of Paradigm, his monumental steel sculpture originally installed outside the Francis Crick Institute. Its ascending geometric form symbolises ambition, risk, and the pursuit of knowledge—an abstract yet potent reflection of resilience and aspiration at the heart of Her Stories Untold.
Colossus Reimagined by Poppy De Havilland
Warrior by Wen Wu
Beyond the Walls: Dialogue and Legacy
Together, these artists create a multi-layered dialogue about power, memory, struggle, imagination, visibility, and legacy. The exhibition positions artistic practice as a site of resistance, care, and collective imagination.
Throughout the exhibition’s run, Town Hall will host talks, panel discussions, and artist-led conversations exploring representation, visibility, and the evolving role of women in contemporary culture. Audiences are invited not only to witness these stories, but to engage with them—to question, reflect, and consider their own relationship to voice, memory, and representation.
Her Stories Untold inaugurates Town Hall’s annual exhibition programme and reflects the venue’s commitment to bold ideas, underrepresented voices, and a living culture of dialogue. It is an invitation to listen closely, to look deeply, and to recognise that the stories we choose to tell—and those we choose to hear—shape the world we inhabit.
