Kamloops Women’s Resource Group Society and the Thompson Rivers University Art Gallery present, “Untold Stories Project: Beatrice Gregory Morley: I am still here”. Beatrice Gregory Morley, age 96, is one of twelve women from Kamloops who was videotaped as she spoke about her involvement in community activism. “This is just the beginning of an ambitious project to gather stories from as many women as possible in the Kamloops area,” say researchers Trish Archibald and Julie Drolet, “What we are discovering is that Beatrice’s story intersects and has similarities with many of the other women’s stories.” Beatrice Morley was involved in the founding and development of the Elizabeth Fry Society in 1973, and also worked with the John Howard Society in Kamloops. She and her husband provided the house for the first Kamloops Women’s Shelter. She also participated in the Mika Nika project with a group of people who worked to improve relations between First Nations and the Kamloops community. Her colourful interactions with Phil Gaglardi are part of her story.
The exhibition opens at 5:00 pm on Oct. 1 and runs until Oct. 17 in the Thompson Rivers University Art Gallery, open week days from 9:00am to 5:00pm. It is the first of several public presentations featuring the twelve women’s accomplishments. Tricia Sellmer, niece of Beatrice, one of the artist/researchers, is presenting a video. “It is an honour to share my Auntie Bea’s story and to add it to the history of Kamloops,” says Sellmer. TRU Visual Arts faculty member, Ila Crawford offers a tribute to Beatrice in an over life sized screen print. Crawford says that she “wants to create a presence that is irrefutable and impossible to dismiss.”
The exhibition is sponsored by BC 150 Museums Celebrating Influential Women, Seniors and Elders, and a TRU Faculty of Arts research grant. Untold Stories, of which the Beatrice Morley story is a small part, is a project undertaken by the Kamloops Women’s Resource Group Society (KWRGS) and funded by New Horizons. The Untold Stories project focuses on Women in the Kamloops area who have contributed, since the 1950s, to the development of social agencies and organizations that involve women. Over the next several months eleven other stories of women’s accomplishments will be presented through the Untold Stories Project.
To complement the exhibition and to include as many women as possible in the Untold Stories project, the public is invited to submit pages to a “Never Ending Book of Women’s Achievements,” to be displayed along with the exhibition.
1. The page(s) for the book:
a. 11×14″ two dimensional medium
b. Should be acid free and can be of any material suitable for a book
c. Will feature the accomplishments of a woman chosen by the participant.
d. The woman featured on the page may be of any age and may also be from any historical period, and any geographical location.
2. Participants, who feature local women on their page, are invited to complete a submission of the woman’s information for future inclusion in the Untold Stories Project. Forms are available through the Kamloops Women’s Resource Group Society at 374-3949.
Pages will be added as they are submitted.
For information and submission forms please contact Sue Cairnie at 374-3949, or Ila Crawford at 371-5706, office OM1521 at TRU.
Examples of pages for the “Never Ending Book” will soon be displayed at www.kwrgs.ca.
Contact:
- Ila Crawford at 250-371-5706
- Sue Cairnie at 250-374-3949
