The Shipbuilders’ Wives On Wednesday, June 5, 2025, our traveling exhibition “The Shipwrights’ Wives” was opened at the Croatian Maritime Museum in Split. The exhibition sheds light on the invisible and often overlooked contributions of women within traditional boatbuilding families. While they did not build boats themselves, women were an integral part of the everyday life in the shipyard — they handled and transported wood, prepared materials for construction, painted hulls, took part in launchings, organized shared meals and events, all while caring for the household, children, elders, and farmland. Curated by Kate Šikić Čubrić, director of the Betina Museum of Wooden Shipbuilding, the exhibition presents life in a shipwright’s family from a woman’s perspective. Her curatorial concept emphasizes how women’s presence — though barely…