Open the Door: GWL x Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design

Illustration students at DJCAD, University of Dundee were invited to respond to the lives and work of the three writers highlighted by Glasgow Women’s Library’s Open the Door Festival 2023: Iona McGregor, Miriam Tlali and Rose Mbowa.

Interwoven within the library, this exhibition is curated by GWL in partnership with DJCAD.

The students have created digital illustrations that have been shared on GWL’s social media, and for this exhibition they have produced freestanding 3D artworks using vinyl-cutting techniques that are placed on top of, or hanging from the shelves or affixed to the windows and pillars.

During the Open the Door Festival 2023 with the theme of activism, we are celebrating three ground-breaking, historic writers: Iona McGregor, Scottish LGBTQI+ activist and author of lesbian novel Death Wore a Diadem; South African author Miriam Tlali, one of the first people to write about Soweto, whose work was banned under the apartheid regime; and Rose Mbowa, playwright, director and actor, who passionately believed in theatre’s role in freedom of speech in Uganda.