Porto, 28th June 2008
Gesto Cooperativa Cultural
Rua Cândido Dos Reis nº 64 - Saturday / 14:30
"It is, of course, hard to climb when you are holding on to both ends of a pole, simultaneously or alternately. It is, therefore, time to switch metaphors." (Donna Haraway)
End of December 2006 Suzanne van Rossenberg, Carla Cruz, Nina Höchtl and Francesco Ventrella submitted a proposal for an Affinity Group about feminist art, queer and trans / gender activism at the European Feminist Forum, to be held in Poland 2008. Quickly it became clear we were the only ones in the field of contemporary art who pursued their participation as an AG. Our proposal focused on finding a way to analyze the tension between art and feminism (why one excludes the other). We aimed to give account to the variety of strategies of feminist artists and share them with other feminists in other fields.
Switching Metaphors already presented their work in Vienna, within the exhibition 'cyber feminism past forward' curated by Rudolfine Lackner and Evelin Stermitz; in Rome we organized a workshop for artists and curators in 1:1projects; Suzanne made a presentation at Kazakh meeting organized by EFF in Amsterdam and later on we organized a private meeting in Leeds.
The Group as finished a call for contributions of feminist, queer and trans / gender artists (and not) on economic strategies, it has been written and translated into Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. The call is on the EFF website and sent out to our networks. www.europeanfeministforum.org
The art works and stories in reaction to our question 'What could a feminist currency look like?' will be collected and hosted by the trans / gender platform (http://www.trans-genderplatform.nl). You will find the call attached.
Most importantly our process has shown that the first step in instigating emancipation through art is raising awareness amongst artists about the relation between economic structures and their art. To transform one's own precarious position into a tool for change --often done in a humorous way--, is a way of making art less boring, but what do we need in order to actually make a (epistemological) standpoint against hetero-normative exhibiting and archiving of art and improve the position of feminist, queer and trans / gender artists (and not)?
If you are interested in discussing feminist strategies with us, please take part in the meeting in Porto! We can tell each other stories about our artistic strategies and explain each other how we each take accountability for our fiction (painting,
performances, writing, curating, community art, etc.) from commissioned to self-funded, from invisible to commercial.
The meeting will be held by Carla Cruz and Francesco Ventrella
Switching Metaphors is an Affinity Group led by Carla Cruz (PT), Nina Höchtl (AUT), Suzanne Van Rossenberg (NL) and Francesco Ventrella (I)
http://europeanfeministforum.org
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