As women continue to make headway in a male-dominated society—Fortune 500 CEOs, Supreme Court justices, North Carolina governor—they also often remain the backbones of their families. Perhaps no organization celebrates the achievements and recognizes the challenges of women more than Women’s Inter-Cultural Exchange (WIE).

WIE launched five years ago to bring together women in the Charlotte area of diverse cultures, with the purpose of helping them learn more about each other and, ultimately, to become stronger forces in their communities. WIE recently partnered with The Light Factory to create an exhibit to showcase the diversity and commonalities of the women in their organization. Titled My Family, Our Culture, the exhibit presented photo collages of 31 women in a one-night show at The Light Factory on August 4.

A large group of women—and men—perused the galleries at The Light Factory as the WIE exhibit was the featured attraction. Each of the 31 pieces presented a group of photos along with captions and an introduction about each woman’s life. The women in WIE are some of the most well-known and accomplished in Charlotte; business executives, educators, elected officials, media personalities, and community leaders. Their exhibits showcased just how diverse their backgrounds are.

“I feel proud to be able to share our family history,” said Cristina Sloan, after admiring the piece in the exhibit about her family, submitted by her sister, Anna Sison. Sloan and her siblings (the Sisons) are the children of Filipino immigrants. They were raised in New Jersey, but have since relocated to Charlotte.

“We learned we aren’t Filipino to those in the Philippines,” Sison writes in her piece. “To them, and to us, we are Americans. Yet here we do the dance of, ‘Where are you from? No, where are you REALLY from?’ knowing it won’t end ’til we claim Filipino.”

In viewing the different pieces in the exhibit, one begins to feel as if you get to know these women and their families, even if only through five photos and a few hundred words.

“They were very selective in what they submitted,” said Jen Crickenberger, associate director of education at The Light Factory and curator of the exhibit. She was in charge of collecting and arranging the materials.

Crickenberger chose to present all of the photos in black and white “for unity,” she said. And while most of the stories were in English, a few were in Spanish. “Some participants wanted their piece in Spanish, and we felt we should let it represent them,” Crickenberger said. “In the future it would be great to represent [a variety] of different languages with English translation.”

WIE will display the exhibit at its annual Members and Friends Reception Sept. 1 at Gil Gallery/Coffey & Thompson Gallery, 109  W. Morehead St. (@ South Tryon Street).

The reception is 5:30-8:30 pm. Please RSVP by Aug. 28 to Laura Everett, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

To see the slideshow go to Crossroads Charlotte