Ministry adjusts gender balance of culture committee

After intense public outcry over the imbalances of the education and culture ministry’s new advisory committee for cultural policy, which had included just one woman among 15 men, the ministry changed course, adding nine more women to the group on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the education and culture ministry was slammed for taking one step forward and two steps back, as though it moved to form an advisory committee that would focus exclusively on enhancing the island’s arts and culture landscape, the committee was seen as severely imbalanced, not only in terms of gender but also in terms of the forms of art and culture that were represented.

Responding to the outcry by both the art and cultural world of Cyprus but also from several organizations and political parties, the ministry on Thursday moved to add nine more women to the committee.

These are Erato Hadjisavva (Associate Professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts), Klitsa Antoniou (Professor at the School of Fine and Applied Arts, Coordinator of the Department of Fine Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology), Louiza Christodoulidou (Associate Professor at the University of the Aegean), Eleni Nikita (Art Historian, collaborator at the Leventios Gallery, author), Marina Vronti (actress-director and writer) Margarita Danou (Architect), Eleni Nikodimou (Visual Artist), Maria Pafiti (Art Historian), Maria Hadjiathanassiou (Researcher at the University of Nicosia, Art Historian).