Exhibition: Discovering female researchers

Berta Karlik (1904–1990) was an Austrian physicist who was the first woman to be appointed a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) in 1973. As the final highlight of the Berta Karlik Year dedicated to her, Brigitte Mazohl curated an exhibition on the subject of discovering female researchers at the Academy of Sciences.

From December 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024, the aula of the main building of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2 will focus on the importance of women and their research at the Academy in the past and present. Multimedia presentations introduce the first female members of the OeAW as well as women in the administration. In addition, current research findings by female researchers in the fields of infection biology, demography, archaeology and history will be highlighted. Particularly noteworthy is an artistic examination of the painting by Olga Prager from 1912, which addresses the long absence of women in the Academy.

A team from the Austrian Archaeological Institute is designing one part of the exhibition on the topic of »Archaeology and Gender«. The focus is on questions such as:

What does gender archaeology deal with? What did the lives of women and children look like in the past? What is the effect of projecting modern gender stereotypes into the past? Were girls and boys treated differently in the Bronze Age? What image of women does prehistoric art convey to us?