28/06/2012

Save The Women's Library Public Meeting: 6th July


Public Meeting: 7pm on Friday 6th July at The Rocket, 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7 8DB (nearest tube Holloway Road)

Join us to discuss what’s going on at The Women’s Library and what you can do to save it!

Many of you have heard about the threat of closure faced by The Women’s Library. Many of you (12,000 people to be precise) have signed our petition protesting against London Met’s decision to divest custodianship. Many of you will have read the extensive press coverage generated by the campaign to save The Women’s Library, which demands that its collections remain together, that we keep its heritage-lottery funded building and its expert body of staff.

Now is the time to get together, as library users, librarians, students, teachers, archivists, union members and community activists to work out how together we can protect this world-famous resource on women and their struggles for freedom.

The meeting will discuss:
  • How can we ensure that the WL remains open and accessible to all?
  • How does this sell-off relate to wider cuts in higher education and attacks on research culture at widening participation universities?
  • What is the government doing to protect our museums and archives in a climate of austerity?
  • How can we make The Women’s Library an even better resource for feminist activists and the East London community?
For more information email savetwl86@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter as@SaveTWL

Please note: This meeting will be held at The Rocket Complex, 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7 and NOT at The Women's Library



Seminário: Poéticas femininas: de Irlanda e Portugal hoje – o espaço entre…

Gisele Wolkoff (CES)
11 de julho de 2012, 17h00, Sala 2, CES-Coimbra

“Aprendemos a duvidar da sabedoria do coração (…) A poesia, a pintura, todas as artes (…) são experiências de nós mesmas (…) Há algo de errado em ser poeta hoje?”. Eis alguns dos mais relevantes excertos do ensaio “Clearing the Space: A Why of Writing”da poeta irlandesa Anne Le Marquand Hartigan, para o quê poderíamos responder que pode haver algo de errado se a poeta for mulher. E, dando continuidade a uma reflexão acerca daquilo que se poderia considerar uma poética feminina, tendo em vista uma vasta lista de autoras contemporâneas, este seminário conclui algumas das etapas que guiaram a pesquisa “Irlanda e Portugal: identidades representadas na poesia feminina dos anos 1960 em diante”, sobretudo, no que se deveu à análise de referenciais estilísticos das obras, comparativamente, a responder a dois momentos históricos (em Irlanda, fins da década de 1960, com as primeiras publicações poéticas inovadoras, com autoras como Eavan Boland, Medbh McGuckian e a própria Anne Hartigan; e em Portugal, início dos anos 1970, com a repercussão no cenário poético das Novas Cartas Portuguesas, as Três Marias e todas as outras que as sucederam). Além dos elementos estilísticos que apontam à figuração de possíveis poéticas femininas, nota-se a disposição distinta de temas comuns, o que sugeriria tanto preocupações sociopolíticas convergentes, quanto espaços de pertencimento em intersecção. No entanto, há também os existires (femininos) divergentes. Tanto uns (de intersecção) quanto outros (de divergência) constituiriam, assim, o espaço entre, o ser-poeta-mulher no assumir das fronteiras de uma pós-modernidade que ainda exige localismos e identidades nacionais claras.

Gisele Giandoni Wolkoff é pós-doutoranda no Centro de Estudos Sociais/FCT. Organizadora e tradutora de "Poem-ando Além-Fronteiras: dez poetas contemporâneas irlandesas e portuguesas" (edição bilingue), Coimbra, Palimage, prepara atualmente o volume "Mundos em palavras: conversando com poetas".

22/06/2012

Feminist Genealogies in Spanish Art: 1960–2010 and Erreakzioa – Reacción. Images of a Project between Art and Feminisim



Opening 23 June 2012

MUSAC, Museo de Arte 
Contemporáneo de Castilla y León

Avda. Reyes Leoneses, 24
24008 León, Spain

www.musac.es


Feminist Genealogies in Spanish Art: 1960- 2010
Until 6 January 2013

Artists: Pilar Albarracín, Xoán Anleo/Uqui Permui, Pilar Aymerich, Eugènia Balcells,
Cecilia Barriga, María José Belbel, Miguel Benlloch, Itziar Bilbao Urrutia, Esther Boix,
Cabello/Carceller, Mónica Cabo, Mar Caldas, Carmen Calvo, Nuria Canal, Anxela
Caramés/Carme Nogueira/Uqui Permui, Ana Casas Broda, Castorina, Mari Chordà,
Montse Clavé, María Antonia Dans, Lucía Egaña Rojas, Itziar Elejalde, Equipo
Butifarra, Erreakzioa-Reacción, Eulàlia (Eulàlia Grau), Esther Ferrer, Alicia Framis,
Carmela García, Ángela García Codoñer, María Gómez, Miguel Gómez/Javier Utray,
Marisa González, Gabriela and Sally Gutiérrez Dewar, Yolanda Herranz, Juan Hidalgo,
ideadestroyingmuros, María Llopis/Girlswholikeporno, Eva Lootz, LSD, Cristina Lucas,
Jesús Martínez Oliva, Chelo Matesanz, Medeak, Miralda, Fina Miralles, Mau Monleón,
Begoña Montalbán, Paz Muro, Paloma Navares, Ana Navarrete, Carmen Navarrete,
Marina Núñez, Itziar Okariz, Isabel Oliver, O.R.G.I.A., Carlos Pazos, Uqui Permui,
Ana Peters, Olga Pijoan, Núria Pompeia, Post-Op, Precarias a la deriva, Joan Rabascall,
Amèlia Riera, Elena del Rivero, María Ruido, Estíbaliz Sádaba, Simeón Saiz Ruiz,
Dorothée Selz, Carmen F. Sigler, Diana J. Torres AKA Pornoterrorista, Laura Torrado,
Eulàlia Valldosera, Video-Nou/José Pérez Ocaña, Azucena Vieites, Virginia Villaplana,
and Isabel Villar.

Curators:
 Juan Vicente Aliaga and Patricia Mayayo

Feminist Genealogies in Spanish Art: 1960-2010 is a show conceived to emphasize
the importance that the discourses on gender and sexual identity have had in Spanish
art production since the 1960s. Through more than 150 works by 80 artists, the
exhibition curated by Juan Vicente Aliaga and Patricia Mayayo proposes a rereading
of Spain's recent art history from new perspectives. The exhibition stems from the
need to restore the erased memory of feminist knowledge, practices and genealogies:
it is important to recover and make visible the work of artists (some men, but
especially women) who were unfairly shunned or forgotten; but it is even more
important to reread the recent history of Spanish art from a different stance, with
other keys and viewpoints. Not only has the legacy of feminism been underestimated
in the most traditional historiography, but also in many of the accounts of art creation in
Spain that are supposed to be more groundbreaking or renovating.
Read more about the project.


Showcase Project: Erreakzioa – Reacción
Images of a Project between Art and Feminism
A project by Erreakzioa – Reacción (Estibaliz Sadaba and Azucena Vieites)
Until 13 January 2013

MUSAC's Showcase Project presents Images of a Project between Art and Feminism,
an art intervention by Erreakzioa – Reacción [Estibaliz Sadaba (Bilbao, 1963) and Azucena
Vieites (San Sebastián, 1967)], which reviews the proposals on the issues of artistic practice,
theory, and feminist activism put forward by the collective since its formation in 1994.
Read more about the project.

18/06/2012

@ Manifesta 9

Visit to Manifesta 9 - Genk - with Wiebke Gronemeyer. 

The curator Cuauhtémoc Medina on the opening guided tour, at Haifeng Ni's piece Para-Production, 2008
Ana Torfs - [...] STAIN [...] 2012
Ana Torfs - [...] STAIN [...] 2012
"The starting point for [...] STAIN [...] is an investigation into synthetic colours derived from coal tar, a by-product of coke manufacture. In 1856 the first coal tar dye, generally known as mauve, was patented by the Bristish chemist W. H. Perkin (Garfield 2002). This discovery led to the growth of an entire industry built around manufacturing synthetic textile dyes, which now number several thousand, and subsequent developments in pharmaceuticals, explosives, photography, food colouring, etc." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Ana Torfs - [...] STAIN [...] 2012
Bea Schlingelhoff - I Am Too Christian for Art, 2012
"Her 'graphic monument' to French visionary philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), displayed on the walls of the balcony of the Waterschei mine, pays homage to Weil's systematic pessimism about the fate of industrial civilisation in the 1930s." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Bea Schlingelhoff - I Am Too Christian for Art, 2012
Nicoline van Harskamp -  Yours in Solidarity, 2009-12
Nicoline van Harskamp -  Yours in Solidarity, 2009-12
"Yours in Solidarity focuses on the history and Future of anarchism and revolves around the archived correspondence of the Dutch anarchist Karl Marx Kreuger (1946-1999), now housed in the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam. Kreuger maintained extensive correspondence with around 400 fellow anarchists worldwide. After studying the letters from 60 of them - focusing her investigation on their respective political observations and analysing their handwriting - van Harskamp cast actors of the appropriative ages and nationalities in order to reconstruct the correspondents' life stories after the last date of writting, imagining what would happen if they were to meet today." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Nicoline van Harskamp -  Yours in Solidarity, 2009-12
Nemanja Cvijanovic - Monument to the Memory of the Idea of the Internationale, 2010
This was the most pervasive piece in the whole exhibition, since there was this massive sound system outside the building broadcasting every time a visitor used the music box. 
"With this piece Cvijanovic pays tribute to that other, sadly unrealised Monument to the Third International, designed by Vladimir Tatlin. Sound builds up in a geometrical progression,  in the paying homage to the cumulative logic of working class solidarity and the dream of the proletarian revolution encoded emotional propaganda values of L'internationale." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Magdalena Jitrik - Revolutionary Life,  2012
"By intervening in the space of the former Waterschei mine in Genk with an installation of free floating abstract paintins, Jitrik perforates the layers of meaning of space in the 20th century. Her abstract paintings also appear in relation to an overview in drawing form, of the critical exchanges between Belgium writer and activist Victor Serge (b. 1880, Brussels; d. 1947, Mexico) and Leon Trotsky on the fate of working class dissent in the Soviet Union, which marks on of the Left's most important moments of self-critique, along with panels with imagined covers of Victor Serge's books." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Claire Fontaine: The House of Energetic Culture 2012
CF "exhumes the recent history of Pripyat, a city founded in 1970, three kilometers away from Chernobyl. Evacuated after the nuclear disaster, it was once the symbol of a very specific dream of soviet progress, namely that of energetic self-suficiency. ... The neon is extinguished in all existing images of the location; here it acts as a reminder of the disaster, or as a warning come too late. The constant danger posed by nuclear disasters form part of an intolerable state of emergency that is in fact the rule rather than the exception."(Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Claire Fontaine: The House of Energetic Culture 2012
Rossella Biscotti:  Title One: The Tasks of the Community 2012
this piece "borrows its title from the 1957 treaty that established the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), one of the documents that serve as basis of the European Union, to take an ironic, post-minimal stance toward the ideologies of environmental regulations and recycling on a broad, continental level. On December 31, 2009, despite extended popular resistance and profound economic consequences, Unit 2 of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania was closed under pressure of the European regulatory bodies. Paradoxically, as part of the EU-financed dismantling process, in 2011 several materials from the site were put up for auction as what the Ignalina plant's website described as 'unnecessary property'. Biscotti attended two public auctions held at the plant, acquiring lead and industrial copper cables, which she then imported to Belgium to be used at the venue for Manifesta 9. She used the lead to produce a floor-based sculpture, and had the copper recylced into new electric wires to supply electricity to the show." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Rossella Biscotti:  Title One: The Tasks of the Community 2012
The Ashington Group: Oliver Kilbourn Windy Day
The Ashington Group 
The Ashington Group 
"Thirty eight students, mostly miners working in the Ashington Collieries, turned up to Robert Lyon's Art Appreciation class in October 1934 (Feaver 2008). Amazingly, forty years later several of that initial group were still meeting, same time very week, to look at art and talk about it and show each other their latest paintings. That's because Robert Lyon had been inspired to get the men to appreciate art by doing it themselves." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Embroidered Sayings - 1870 - 1930, Selection of 31 linen, half-linen or cotton embroidered napkins (selected out from more than 200), variable dimensions. Collection: Museum van de Mijnwerkerswoning, Eisden.
Embroidered Sayings - 1870 - 1930, Selection of 31 linen, half-linen or cotton embroidered napkins (selected out from more than 200), variable dimensions. Collection: Museum van de Mijnwerkerswoning, Eisden.
Embroidered Sayings - 1870 - 1930, Selection of 31 linen, half-linen or cotton embroidered napkins (selected out from more than 200), variable dimensions. Collection: Museum van de Mijnwerkerswoning, Eisden.
Eva Gronbach: Was Vergeht /Was Besteht / Was Ensteht, 2012
"Under cover of the public's familiarity and comfort with the universe of fashion, Eva Gronbach brings her audience face to face with repressed or traumatic histories in order to foster a process of collective healing. Her German Jeans collection addressed the transformative historical and cultural processes of de-industrialisation in Europe, incorporating oiginal coal miner's uniforms into the flashy world of haute couture." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)
Eva Gronbach: Was Vergeht /Was Besteht / Was Ensteht, 2012
 Haifeng Ni's piece Para-Production, 2008 on the following day, already with participants.


There were other works that I did not document, some because of restrictions imposed by the artists (such as Avalon), or because I haven't actually seen them (work by Lara Almarcegui), or because I forgot.

Maryam Jafri - Avalon 2012
"Maryam Jafri's Avalon examines the manufacture of fetish clothing and accessories for the sex industry. ... this video straddles the boundary between cinema and theatre, documentary and fiction. It begins in an unspecified Asian country where an entrepreneur (whose face is concealed) describes how he founded a clandestine, million-dollar business that exports fetish wear, with a small start-up investment from his father. The women who work as seamstresses in his small factory believe that they are sewing body bags for the US Army, straight jackets, and accessories for circus animals, though they have their doubts." (Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)

Lara Almarcegui - Wasteland (Genk) 2004-16

"She conceived Een braakliggend terrein in Genk in 2004, under the auspices of FLACC (Workplace for Visual Artists). For her project, Almarcegui identified a neglected plot of land situated between the Jaarbeurslaan and Europalaan highways in Genk. Accompanied by a local nature guide, she carefully scouted, surveyed and described the land. Through negotiations with the city of Genk, Almarcegui then arranged to protect the terrain from development for a period of ten years, preserving the wasteland in its untouched state and allowing nature to take its own course, subject only to the forces and the temporality of wind, rain, sun, vegetation, spontaneous use and litter. ... For Manifesta 9, the city of Genk has agreed to extend the work for an additional two years, and is currently in the planning stages of protecting it in perpetuity."(Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)

Beehive Design Collective

The True Cost of Coal, 2008, "is an epic banner produced collectively by a number of 'bees', following two years of collaborative research, story development, and meticulous drawing. The banner examines the impact of coal mining on human and ecological communities and unfolds as an intricate and encyclopaedic narrative revolving around the history of coal and insdustrialisation, and the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining."(Excerpt from Manifesta 9, The Deep of the Modern: A Subcyclopaedia)

11/06/2012

Morreu Maria Keil


Maria Keil: Artista ou Operária? no Público

JOANNA

re-publico aqui, o artigo encontrado no blog 'a cidade das mulheres'
Joanna Mucha, a (muito criticada) ministra polaca do Desporto | P3

Isto é muito recorrente na Polónia quando uma mulher assume um cargo político e público: logo uma grande parte dos media suspeitam algo fora do normal – se a mulher é bonita, ainda pior porque qualquer ginástica que ela fizesse, NUNCA contam as suas qualidades e capacidades, mas sim a beleza que capta atenção desviando-a do que é importante: eficácia e competências.
Estuda-se em pormenor o “passado” da mulher e se por acaso ela era modelo, logo desconfia-se da capacidade de decisão e inteligência. Faz-me pensar na cultura horrível americana onde o passado dum/a político/a logo dificulta o futuro.
O que cria desconforto aos muitos homens na Polónia (políticos, jornalistas, etc.) é que uma MULHER entrou num campo reservado aos HOMENS: desporto, ou melhor dizer – futebol. Serão feitos todos os esforços para desacreditar a mulher apontado todas as fraquezas reais ou imaginárias.
O argumento que ela não sabe nada sobre desporto faz-me rir à gargalhada, porque já vi tantos políticos polacos super incompetentes que mudavam os cargos que nada tinham a ver com as suas “competências” e experiência, mas ninguém ousou dizer nada porque, como eram homens, à partida eram competentes…
Para vos dar mais um pormenor sobre a Ministra Joanna Mucha: há um mês explodiu uma “bomba” quando ela, numa entrevista na televisão, disse ao jornalista que quer ser tratada como “senhora ministra” (em polaco, supostamente, não existe uma palavra “ministra” no feminino, só “minister” no masculino). Não houve nenhum órgão de imprensa que não dedicasse pelo menos uma página por dia ao assunto. Centenas de “especialistas” pronunciavam-se sobre o termo correto ou não, os linguistas escreviam as cartas abertas acerca de pureza da língua polaca apontando a incompetência linguística da MINISTRA (LOL) mas o que ela queria, e eu achei muito acertado, era fazer as pessoas prestar atenção que a invisibilidade de mulheres na língua significa a invisibilidade delas na vida política e pública! Ou seja, a invisibilidade na língua - quando ela não é inclusiva - ilustra a mesma invisibilidade de mulheres noutras áreas da vida - política, cultural, etc..
Concordo com ela 100% porque a língua é um ser vivo e deve “responder” às mudanças mentais, culturais e sociais duma sociedade. Mas a intenção da ministra Mucha foi distorcida e considerada uma piada de mau gosto.
O jornalista Luciano Santos acabou também por não fazer o seu trabalho devidamente, porque o seu artigo lembra-me mais os mexericos mal contados do que o trabalho dum jornalista de qualidade, que se apoie em fontes concretas.

Natalia Telega