Feminist Lines of Flight in Art and Politics: The what, where, when, how and why.
What?
In order to explore the question of how we have gone on, how we do go on now, and how we dream/ desire to go on in the future in response to a feminist heritage, this rich and expansive archive of texts, publications, audio/video, film-clips and images offers a range of starting points for feminist lines of flight in art and politics.
Where and when?
The Read Out! Read In! collection is accessible in tangible form at Glasgow Women’s Library and as an online resource here. This material provides departure points for a network of reading groups (advertised in the library and through the website), in Glasgow and beyond. Anyone can add details of their own feminist lines of flight or reading group to this site and we will endeavour to locate any new material and add it to the collection.
Browse the contributed Lines of Flight here.
Share your own Lines of Flight in the comments below.
How?
Read Out! Read In! Feminist Lines of Flight in Art and Politics was initiated by Faith Wilding, Kate Davis (see below for further information on both artists), the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow and Glasgow Women’s Library. It was developed by Louise Shelley, Hannah Ellul and Alice Andrews in conjunction with Wilding and Davis’ two-woman discursive exhibition project, The Long Loch: How Do We Go On From Here?, which was held at the CCA as part of Glasgow International 2010. Wilding and Davis invited a wide range of international co-inspiritors to select up to three starting points for feminist lines of flight in art and politics for discussion and feasting on. Further information about, and images of, previous Read Out! Read In! reading groups and events can be found on the CCA Lines of Flight website.
Why?
‘Read Out! Read In! Feminist Lines of Flight in Art and Politics’ strives to connect many different points of departure for feminist thinking, discussion and making. By re-launching and establishing the collection at Glasgow Women’s Library we hope to enable this rich archive of freely available inspiration to remain active and continue to grow.
Faith Wilding
Faith Wilding emigrated from Paraguay to the USA in 1961. She studied and worked with Judy Chicago and was part of the Feminist Art Program and Womanhouse in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. To this day, she refuses to limit herself to a single artistic medium, and she continues to expand and develop the formal structures of her art. Her works are textile sculptures, performance, new media and critical discourses that explore social problems and issues.
Faith Wilding is a Professor in the Performance Department of the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, as well as Graduate Faculty of the MFA in Visual Art Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Wilding has exhibited and performed widely around the world for the past 40 years, including at: CCA, Glasgow; Bronx Museum of Art, NY; MOCA in Los Angeles; The Whitney Museum of Art; the Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Drawing Center, New York; Ars Electronica, Linz; Documenta X, Kassel; the Singapore Art Museum, and other venues.
Wilding co-founded and collaborates with subRosa, a reproducible cyberfeminist cell of cultural researchers using BioArt and tactical performance in the public sphere to explore and critique the intersections of information and biotechnologies in women’s bodies, lives, and work. subRosa produces artworks, performances, workshops, contestational campaigns, publications, media interventions, and public forums. Wilding/subRosa performances/exhibitions include: “Bodies Unlimited”, Bilbao, Spain; “The Interventionists”, MASSMoCA; “BioDifference” Biennial of Electronic Arts, Perth, Australia; Performance International, Mexico City, and Merida, Yucatan; “Cloning Cultures,” National University, Singapore; Welcome to the Revolution, Zurich; Art of Maintenance, Kunstakademie, Vienna.
Kate Davis
Kate Davis was born in New Zealand and now lives and works in Glasgow where she also teaches at Glasgow School of Art. Informed by successive waves of feminist art and theory Davis’ art practice centres on the fragile re-calibration of representation through twentieth century art and literature. Revisiting biographical as well as art historical moments, Davis has worked across a range of media (including installation, drawing, printmaking, bookworks, photography, sculpture, video and film) to question how she could ‘re-vision’ the fallibility of historical memory through her activities as a female artist today.
Referring to specific artworks and texts by a range of twentieth century artists, writers and performers (such as Kaethe Kollwitz, Carl Andre, Katherine Mansfield, Franz Gertsch, Joan Jonas, Willem De Kooning and Yvonne Rainer amongst others), she is attempting to both imagine a past that could have happened differently from the way it actually did, and delineate alternative ways to move forward. Davis has presented solo shows at Museo de la Ciudad and La Galeria de Comercio, Mexico; Kunsthalle, Basel; Galerie Kamm, Berlin and was selected for Art Now, Tate Britain, London in 2007. Recent group shows include: ‘Art Sheffield 10’ (collaborative commission with Jimmy Robert); ‘Better living with…’ (Museum Ludwig, Cologne); ‘Das Gespinst’ (Stadtisches Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach) and ‘The End of the Line’ (various UK venues and organised by Hayward Touring). Davis has been awarded residencies at Cove Park, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland; Banff Arts Center, Canada and Camden Arts Centre, London.
Further information on and images of all her work can be found here.
Tell us your own Lines of Flight
Inspired? Share your own Lines of Flight in the comments.
