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Landmark SHE_SEES exhibition comes to Portsmouth

Posted: Friday 12th July 2024

Landmark SHE_SEES exhibition comes to Portsmouth

After its launch at last year’s London International Shipping Week, a groundbreaking exhibition spotlighting the inspirational stories of women in maritime is coming to Portsmouth, United Kingdom.

Launching on Friday 2 August, members of the public will be able to experience the free, thought-provoking SHE_SEES exhibition hosted in Boathouse 4 at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
 
The exhibition, hosted in partnership with Portsmouth Historic Quarter and the University of Portsmouth, taps into archive materials from across the UK and Ireland to uncover the extensive history of trailblazing female voices in the maritime industry and aims to change the tide on diversity.
 

More than just looking into the past, the exhibition highlights a persistent gender imbalance. Recent research from the International Maritime Organization, found that women currently only account for just 29% of the overall industry workforce – a figure that drops to 2% when it comes to female seafarers within the crewing workforce.

Blending striking visuals, art and storytelling, the SHE_SEES exhibition features portraits of inspiring women working in the maritime industry. It also includes two new portraits from Portsmouth-based women – Betzy Shell, Boatbuilder, and Emily Ball, Boatkeeper Assistant.  

The exhibition also features research from Dr Melanie Bassett, historian and Research Fellow in Public Engagement at the University of Portsmouth. Dr Bassett is a member of the University’s Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures (PCMC), which focuses on the past, present and future importance of urban-maritime cultures and communities across the globe. Her research has examined the crucial role that women played in the city’s Historic Dockyard during the First World War.

The SHE_SEES exhibition is part of the ‘Rewriting women into maritime history’ project initiated by Lloyd's Register and Lloyd's Register Foundation. In it's first year the initiative collated stories on material spread across archives beginning with the UK & Ireland. A three year international research and engagement phase is now being planned so that accounts of women in the shipping industry can be identified and placed in the public domain, often for the first time.

Find out more here: Landmark SHE_SEES exhibition comes to Portsmouth (lrfoundation.org.uk)