NEWSLETTER

Switch Metaphors Affinity Group Feminist Art for the European Feminist Forum 2008

NEWSLETTER
This newsletter is to inform you on the AG’s activities and how you can participate.

REPORTING ON ROME
Affinity Group “Switch Metaphors” (Carla Cruz, Nina Höchtl, Francesco Ventrella and Suzanne van Rossenberg) organized the first workshop about feminist artistic strategies on May 28th 2007 in Rome.

The three big topics mentioned in the press release were pinned on the wall: politics, production of knowledge and economics. During listening to presentations of each other’s art works and projects, everybody was free to write words and terms on yellow Post-its. At the end of the day the yellow Post-its summarized all the different aspects of the artistic strategies that we are dealing with. A lot of terms did not strictly belong to one category.

The word FUN that appeared above all three categories is a good representation of the day. The fact that a lot of the Italian participants were not familiar with the term “feminist” was no problem in talking about feminism. The workshop proved that raising awareness is not about defining things, but to give space to people to share their starting-points, their assumptions or prejudices about feminism, their experiences with feminism.

Download the full report with a list of participants and URL’s to websites in the Feminist Art section at the EFF website: http://europeanfeministforum.org/spip.php?rubrique8&lang=en

PARTICIPATE IN THE EFF
The EFF offers us a framework of Affinity Groups. These groups discuss different topics. It seems logical to communicate our artistic solutions to the problems we individually come across to other AG’s so we can share our strategies with other fields of feminist production, but how?

There is the forum in Poland in June 2008 where our AG can make a contribution in any form we prefer. The organization of our AG is an open, participatory process in which you can participate and determine this AG’s presence at the forum.

NEXT STEPS
From the EFF there is the possibility to participate in their Thematic Forum within the topic of Feminist Art. Go to: http://europeanfeministforum.org/spip.php?rubrique1
Switch Metaphors can publish articles and photos in the section Feminist Art, and you are welcome to contribute in a way that the website allows: A story, a description of your project, photos of your artwork. Send this to suzannevanrossenberg@gmail.com

Our next workshop will be in Porto in November (dates follow). We would like to make Porto a follow-up of Rome. You are all warmly invited. Please let us know if you are interested to come. If you are interested, but not able to come to Porto, we ask to think of a small contribution for the workshop: your website link, a trace of your project, a thought, your key word, your favourite Post-It.

We use the EFF website and this newsletter to keep you updated.