Author Katy Hessel joins artist Phoebe Boswell and Sally Bacon OBE, Executive Co-Chair of the Cultural Learning Alliance, to discuss what is being done to broaden access to art for younger people and new audiences, and why it matters.
Set during the inaugural exhibition by Town Hall Presents in partnership with The Circle: Her Stories Untold, the morning will also introduce the AWITA x Town Hall by Bottaccio Open Call, inviting members to pitch their ideas for future events.
Katy Hessel, Author of The Story of Art Without Men: An Illustrated Guide to Amazing Women Artists. Photo by Lily Bertrand-Webb
Founded in 2016, The Association of Women in The Arts (AWITA) exists to make the art world a fairer place by investing in women’s professional and emotional skill sets and expanding their networks to empower them to thrive.
AWITA brings together inspirational women working across the arts ecology. Our members include gallerists; curators; art advisers; academics; as well as auction house, PR, museum and art fair professionals.
This partnership aligns Town Hall’s focus on amplifying female voices through our Her Stories Untold exhibition with AWITA’s mission to create a fairer art world. Together, we are turning these shared values into action by launching a joint Open Call that directly empowers women in the arts to shape future cultural programming.
8:30 AM
Light tea/ coffee refreshments
9:00 – 10:00AM
Panel discussion
10:00 – 10:30 AM
Opportunity to ask the Town Hall team questions, meet the speakers, and get your copy of The Story of Art Without Men: An Illustrated Guide to Amazing Women Artists signed. Copies will be available for purchase.
Phoebe Boswell, photo by Katerina Liapis
Sally Bacon
Her Stories Untold is the first in the Town Hall Presents annual exhibition programme. Curated by Town Hall’s Director of Art, Virginia Damtsa, and presented in partnership with The Circle (a global feminist organisation co-founded by Annie Lennox). It inaugurates Town Hall’s cultural programme with a powerful tribute to women in all their diversity, across generations, cultures, disciplines and lived experiences.
The exhibition is intimately staged within the Society’s Salon, a private space that serves as an elegant prelude to Town Hall’s wider Society offering, opening later this year. Driven by refreshing, provocative and thoughtful programming, the Salon is Town Hall’s beating heart. It hosts a curated rotation of exhibitions, drinks receptions, talks and intimate dinners. Fuelled by a dynamic clash of individuals and communities, it is a space where extraordinary people come together to build the foundations of Town Hall Society.
Bringing together leading artists from the UK and internationally, Her Stories Untold celebrates female resilience, creativity, visibility and voice. The exhibition examines how women have been portrayed, silenced, honoured, misunderstood, celebrated and reimagined through portraiture, textiles, photography, sculpture, painting and digital works.
Throughout the run of Her Stories Untold, Town Hall will host artist talks, studio conversations, panel discussions and dialogues exploring representation, visibility and the evolving role of women in contemporary culture. The programme aims to create a space for dialogue, connection and collective imagination. Audiences are invited not only to witness these stories but to engage, question and reflect on their own relationship to voice, memory and representation.
Virginia Damtsa visits Jonathan Yeo in his studio
Embracing expansive understandings of womanhood, the exhibition acknowledges lived experience, self-identification, and the intersections of gender, culture, race and power. Her Stories Untold asks 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 quiet, intimate moments of inner life, the narrative unfolds across multiple perspectives to reveal the complexity and richness of womanhood today. At a moment when visibility, autonomy and authorship are increasingly contested, both online and offline, the exhibition situates artistic practice as a site of resistance, care and collective imagination.
DACS by Carolina Mazzolari
Girl Reading (Malala Yousafzai) by Jonathan Yeo
