Women are often overlooked in the sciences, but GE believes that great female scientists should be treated like stars. Grand Central station in New York is known for the constellations of mythical heroes painted on its ceiling. These were replaced with heroines: women scientists who made great contributions to the field. The constellations of female scientists were projection-mapped them onto the ceiling, stopping New Yorkers in their tracks and getting them talking about the issue.
Women make up 47% of the workforce but only account for 14% of engineers—and even the work of these women goes unrecognized. Only two women have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, with the most recent awarded over 50 years ago. GE’s Balance the Equation initiative is a push to hire, promote and retain more women in science and technology, including the goal of hiring 20,000 female scientists and engineers by 2020. In addition to hiring more women, GE wanted to honor the work of women in STEM fields and inspire young girls to follow in their footsteps. We needed to get people’s attention, transcending multiple audiences on a massive scale, and immerse people in the world we aspired to create.
Story (original language)
Women are often overlooked in the sciences. As a STEM leader, GE believes that great female scientists should be treated like stars. Grand Central is known for the constellations painted on its ceiling depicting mythical heroes. We replaced them with real heroes: women scientists who made great contributions to the field. We created constellations of female scientists and projection-mapped them onto the ceiling (effectively turning the space into the world’s largest planetarium). The “Unseen Stars” experience stopped New Yorkers in their tracks and got them talking about this serious issue.