BROOKLYN, NY.- “Equal Pay, equal wallspace!” – such was the rallying cry from Dr. Elizabeth A. Sackler that launched the Brooklyn Museum’s annual luncheon honoring women who make significant impact on the arts landscape.

The “Trailblazers: Women in the Arts” event celebrated Janet Mock, Sarah Arison, Ellen Gallagher, Lowery Stokes Sims, and Miyoung Lee— five highly accomplished women who, according to Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum Anne Pasternak, “use their power for good” and “represent the best of the arts ecosystem.” The women received handmade one-of-a-kind necklaces designed by artist Kiki Smith as part of the awards.

This year’s event was the most successful Women in the Arts to date, drawing an incredible 150-person crowd including MoMA’s Klaus Biesenbach, Artist Zoe Buckman, Art Production Fund’s Yvonne Force Villereal, Pulse Art Fair’s Helen Toomer, Choreographer Bill T. Jones, Artist Lorna Simpson, and more. Funds raised benefit public programs in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and educational programs offered at the Brooklyn Museum. Most notably, these festivities mark an auspicious beginning for the Museum’s “Year of Yes” – celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, which will center around 10 exhibitions over the course of 12 months.

Pasternak acted as emcee for the presentation, inviting each honoree to the stage one-by-one to participate in lightning round Q&A sessions about their lives, passions, work, and collections. First up: Sarah Arison with Bill T. Jones focusing on the need for collaboration between arts organizations and more support for upcoming artists. Brooklyn Museum’s Chief Curator Nancy Spector then took to the stage with the venerable Lowery Stokes Sims to chat about favorite projects and what Sims called, “strategic misbehavior.” Next, Miyoung Lee sat with Pasternak to ruminate on collecting and having “an epiphany around a piece by Ghada Amer” while visiting the Museum in 2012. Artist Ellen Gallagher, joined by the Sackler Family Curator Catherine Morris, did a deep dive into several pieces of her work and talked about how we tend to “arrange things that are scary in literary form” to make it more palatable. Capping off the program: Powerhouse and transgender icon Janet Mock spoke with writer/poet Tom Healy about her memoir, the power of storytelling as a whole and how she learned to write herself into history.