Imaging Women in the Space Age

Curated By: Julie Wosk

On display in the exhibition are vintage and current images of female space travelers in television shows like Lost in Space and Star Trek, photographs of space-inspired fashions including Pucci’s designs for Braniff Airlines flight attendants and Chanel’s 2017 futuristic dresses, and screenshots from films like Barbarella (1968) starring Jane Fonda and Gravity (2013), which starred Sandra Bullock.

The exhibition reminds us of the groundbreaking achievements of pioneering astronauts with photographs of Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space; Mae Jemison, America’s first African American female astronaut; and Ellen Ochoa, America’s first Hispanic woman to go into space.

The exhibition also reflects a world where important changes are underway as more and more women are participating in NASA’s space program as astronauts and as astronautical engineers. It reveals innovative new developments in space suits specifically designed for women.

About the Curator: Wosk is a professor emerita of English, art history, and studio painting at SUNY Maritime in New York City. She is the author of six books, including Artificial Women and Women and the Machine: Representations From the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age which includes women and aviation.  She is also writing a new book about women in space.

Organized by New York Hall of Science, Queens, NY

“This exhibit with its colorful images celebrates courageous women flyers and astronauts, while capturing the excitement over space travel and space women seen in cultural images and fashion. Whether Artemis, the goddess of the moon, or today’s ground-breaking female astronauts making a milestone spacewalk, women continue to be an inspiration to us today.”
– Julie Wosk, Curator