Material Gestures | Art Licks 2019
The Old Police Station, Deptford, London
18th - 20th October 2019
Curated by Catherine Long and Rose Gibbs
Participating artists: Frederica Agbah, Miriam Austin, Ingrid Berthon-Moine, Phoebe Collings-James, Cécile Emmanuelle Borra, Rose Gibbs, Ala Jazayeri, Catherine Long, Ope Lori, Anja Olofgörs, Minna Pöllänen, Martina Schmücker, Lauren Schneider, NT, Karis Upton, Samiya Younis
Taking its starting point from the working processes of Practice in Dialogue, a group of feminist artists who have been meeting over the last 5 years to provide peer support, collaborative working and community, this exhibition places work by the artists in the historical context of feminist art practices and the collectives that have sustained them. Peer mentoring groups and artist collectives have been key in nourishing women artists’ practices while their work has been all too often marginalised and ignored in a male-dominated artworld. Presenting work by the Practice in Dialogue group alongside archival documents from women’s artist collectives from the 1970s onwards, this exhibition explores the dynamics of building communities and collective organising to create space for new contexts and visual languages.
This exhibition presents artworks by Practice in Dialogue artists alongside archival material from women artists’ peer support groups and collectives of the 1970 and 1980s. Situating the groups’ work in the historical context of feminist support structures, the exhibition will examine the ways in which these structures build an alternative to the gallery system and create energy that paves the way for the beginnings of institutional change.
This exhibition will use the model of feminist peer mentoring groups and interpendence to examine what is possible when new support structures are created. It will look at the historical precedents for such strategies and explore the ways these groups provide a site that builds, strengthens, protects and spreads communities.
Exploring the interdependence of the members of such groups, the exhibition will look at the way in which collectives provide artists with a space to find their own artistic voices and a sounding board against which to test out new ideas. It will look at the political context within which these groups have operated and consider the impacts they have had and continue to have on the broader cultural landscape, particularly in the light of the recent feminist resurgence and the attendant backlash.
The exhibition will also examine the alternative networks that these collectives provide on a trans-generational level, as a practice used over various generations by feminist artists as a way of negotiating space and shared dialogue. We will explore the ways in which such collectives demonstrate a specifically feminist methodology where research and resources are shared, resisting the norms of individualistic art practice and offering not recreation of and infiltration into a patriarchal hierarchy but instead a radical shift of focus with community at its core.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a talk on Saturday 19th October with one of the founding members of the BLK Art Group Marlene Smith and curator Amy Tobin. The event will begin at 2.30pm with a visit to the exhibition at The Old Police Station, 114 Amersham Vale, New Cross, London, SE14 6LG. We will then walk to the nearby Women’s Art Library at Goldsmiths University where the panel discussion will begin at 3.30pm and finish at 5.30pm.
Supported by Arts Council England
Images by Andrew Bruce
