The venerable Museo del Prado in Madrid inspired Elizabeth Lvov ’17 to create a research project rooted in digital media. She spent many hours in the museum for an art history course she took when studying abroad. The museum was rich in depictions of women, but as far as Lvov could ascertain it contained not a single piece of art created by a woman.
“I started thinking about the ways in which the internet allows women and girls to sort of subvert those institutions entirely and reach a wide audience of people without having to necessarily go into those male dominated spaces. So this visit to this amazing museum inspired this project,” says Lvov, a comparative literature major. With support from Professor of Art Ella Gant, Lvov received a grant from Hamilton to spend a summer researching how women artists use the internet.
Lvov sought out women artists with an internet following, did face-to-face interviews with four of them in New York City and Philadelphia and filmed the interviews, which she is now editing. A big part of the project is the Tumblr blog she created.
Once the project is wrapped up Lvov anticipates she will continue to explore the use of digital media to expand her scholarship. “I think I really want to go into teaching, actually, and I want to be a teacher who’s not afraid of the significance of technology,” she says.
