Art for Health

The vision

Global disparities in reproductive health between rich and poor countries represent one of the starkest health inequities of our time and a major social justice.
Each year approximately 500,000 pregnant women and four million newborns die due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. 99% of these deaths occur in the poorest countries of the world. Similarly, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS, reproductive tract infections, chronic hepatitis, HPV-related cervical cancer, and other morbidities disproportionately affect the most vulnerable and disenfranchised populations of women and infants.

Much could potentially be done to save and improve the lives of women and their families if more people became fully informed about the risks associated with reproductive health in low resource nations, and galvanized to work towards alleviating these risks.

The “Art for Health” project aims to increase awareness of and promote action towards the improvement of women’s reproductive health conditions around the world. The series of paintings depict women from diverse ethnic and social backgrounds. Inscribed within the paintings are messages spoken by the women themselves that call upon the viewer to join them in a unified effort to better their lives and the lives of future generations.

Ms. Elisabetta Farina is an accomplished artist dedicated to the documentation of women’s struggles to achieve gender equity. Through the use of an artistic expression originally developed during the Pop Art movement, Ms. Farina produces empowering portraits of women seeking to confront and challenge their adverse life circumstances. The positive images of women she creates force us to re-consider stereotypical notions of underprivileged women as hapless victims, asking us instead to view them as willing partners in the advancement of women’s health.

Gallery

See the artworks.

History of the project

Partners

Elisabetta Farina, painter
Willy Pasini, GFMER
Mario Merialdi, RHR/WHO
Aldo Campana, GFMER
Francesco Aureli, IMAGINE
Jennifer Harris, Population Centre University of Texas

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Edited by Aldo Campana,