MICHELE PRED
Women’s Vote
Electroluminescent Wire on Vintage Handbag
2017

"Women's Vote" was created for ArtsWestchester's exhibition, "Give Us the Vote," and is part of an ongoing series of handbags entitled "Pred-a-Porter."

Pred-a-Porter Statement:
Each unique piece is made using a vintage handbag from the 1950’s or 60’s. I chose purses as my canvas as a way to marry the politically-charged messages of the Pro-Choice movement with representations of women’s modern economic power and the possibilities for change that come with it. For me, the use of purses from the mid-twentieth century also calls back to that critical era and reminds us how much has changed and, more importantly, how much has not.

The text on each purse is created using Electroluminescent wire that is lit up using batteries. The purses are meant to be carried and serve as small-scale political billboards.
- Michele Pred

Michele Pred is a Swedish-American conceptual artist whose practice includes, sculpture, assemblage and performance. Her work uncovers the cultural and political meaning behind everyday objects with a particular focus on themes like equal pay, reproductive rights and personal security. In 2016 she received a Pro-Choice Leadership Award from Personal PAC in Chicago. She is a founding member of the artist run For Freedoms Super PAC. Recent group exhibitions include For Freedoms at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York and The Future is Female at the 21C Museum. Her work is part of the permanent collection at The Berkeley Art Museum, The 21st Century Museum, The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) New York, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, The 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York, and is held in numerous corporate and private collections. Michele received her BFA from California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA.

Her work has been reviewed and featured by The New York Times, The New York Observer, The International Herald Tribune, ARTnews, Art in America, WIRED, American Craft Magazine, Huffington Post, Rachel Maddow, ReadyMade Magazine, TimeOut New York, Travel and Leisure Magazine, Associated Press Television, CBS Evening news with Katie Couric, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NBC, ABC, The San Francisco Chronicle, Corriere della Sera (Italy), TV4 and Dagens Nyheter (Sweden). Michele Pred received her BFA from California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA.