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Laramie, WY 82071

Phone: (307) 766-2929

Email: cbaldwin@uwyo.edu

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World Premiere of The Bearded Lady Project March 3 at UW

February 21, 2017
poster with beareded person outside
The documentary film “The Bearded Lady Project: Challenging the Face of Science” will screen Friday, March 3, from 6:30-7:20 p.m. in Room 133 of the Classroom Building. The film and an accompanying portrait exhibition celebrate the work of female paleontologists and highlight the challenges and obstacles they face. (Ellen Currano Photo)

Ellen Currano used to joke with filmmaker Lexi Jamieson Marsh that her life as a paleontologist would be so much easier if she could sprout facial hair in what is traditionally a male-dominated field that has long celebrated large, grizzled or bearded men going out into the field, facing the elements, carrying a large pickax and moving boulders.

That good-natured exchange turned serious when Currano, a University of Wyoming assistant professor of botany, and geology and geophysics, teamed up with Marsh and Kelsey Vance to create the documentary film “The Bearded Lady Project: Challenging the Face of Science.”

The world premiere of the film, free and open to the public, is Friday, March 3, from 6:30-7:20 p.m. in Room 133 of the Classroom Building. The film and photographic project celebrates the work of female paleontologists and highlights the challenges and obstacles they face. The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with cast and crew members. An opening reception for the portrait exhibition is scheduled from 7:30-9 p.m. in the UW Geological Museum.

Admission to the film is free, but donations are encouraged to support a scholarship fund for future female scientists. The portrait exhibition will remain on display through Tuesday, May 16.

Currano, a UW paleobotanist, is featured in the film. Marsh, founder of On Your Feet Entertainment, directed and produced it and Vance, an independent artist, served as the fine art photographer.

“Female scientists are missing from the media. The collaboration between film and photography offers two opportunities for audiences to interact with this project, as well as a new and creative voice to initiate public discourse,” Currano says. “Through the film, the audience will see women in action and recognize how rare it is to see them featured as scientists. Through the portraits, the audience is left to dwell on the still images before them, to evaluate their own preconceived notions regarding gender roles.”

Supported by Currano’s National Science Foundation CAREER grant, Marsh, Vance and Draper White, the film’s director of photography, traveled across the U.S. and the United Kingdom interviewing female paleontologists and, of course, taking bearded portraits of scientists in their field, laboratory, and museum and classroom settings.

The exhibition will feature 40 black-and-white photographs that recreate historical portraits of the female adventurers that are absent from science books and documentaries.

Currano has a geology background. She received her B.S. in geophysical sciences and an A.B. in biological sciences, both from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in geosciences from Pennsylvania State University. She digs up fossilized plants; uses them to figure out what climate, ecology and vegetation structure were like; and looks at bug bites on the leaves and interprets insect-plant interactions.

Although the core focus of the project is paleontology, the ideals behind “The Bearded Lady Project” can be applied to a wide range of communities, Currano says.

“Public access to the project has the ability to further empower women of the future, encouraging them to pursue their passion, whether it is in science, sports, engineering, politics, filmmaking, photography, etc.,” she says. “This project appeals to any individual that feels invisible in their chosen area of study.”

To learn more about the project and watch trailers for the film, visit www.thebeardedladyproject.com.

Contact Us

Institutional Communications

Bureau of Mines Building, Room 137

Laramie

Laramie, WY 82071

Phone: (307) 766-2929

Email: cbaldwin@uwyo.edu

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