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 mentioned in traditional narratives — was constant, reliable, and essential. Through documentary interviews, family photographs, everyday objects, and multimedia recordings, the exhibition reconstructs women’s lived experiences — their work, emotions, and family realities.
A special focus is placed on oral history — the women speak for themselves, in their own words and memories. The selected objects and images create an intimate setting where their personal experiences merge with the space of the shipyard and the home. These life stories reveal the complexity of women’s roles: they were laborers, organizers, tradition keepers, and transmitters of knowledge — the invisible backbone of their communities. The exhibition opens space to reflect on the patriarchal model of labor and heritage, not in a confrontational tone, but with deep respect for the everyday and the quiet strength of women’s contributions — modest, yet immense.
The exhibition will remain open at the Croatian Maritime Museum in Split until September 7, 2025.
We thank all those who joined us for the opening and supported our wish to tell a different, but equally important history — one in which boats are not built only by hands holding tools, but also by hands that hold families, communities, and daily life together.