Alumni News

#KissMyArs

After receiving honorable mention for a Golden Nica Award at the Ars Electronica festival, Heather Dewey-Hagborg ’03 discovered that more than 90 percent of the prize’s winners over its 29-year history were male. In response, Heather and other female artists developed a social media campaign—#KissMyArs—which quickly went viral.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg

“My participation in this campaign stemmed from a frustration that this highly esteemed prize was one designed for men, and others need not apply,” Dewey-Hagborg wrote. "As women in art and tech, we are consistently under-recognized, under-funded, and written out of history. We are made to feel that our work must simply not be as good as that of our male peers, and if only we made better work we would attain the same accolades and accomplishments as they did.”