Now You Can Go
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Thursday 10 December – Sunday 13 December 2015
Event programme considering feminist thinking, art and activism, part of a wider programme taking place across The Showroom, the ICA, Space Studios and Raven Row (1–13 December). Please visit Now You Can Go site for information on the whole programme.
For The Showroom events and booking information see below.
For ticketed events a number of bursary tickets are available for those unable to pay. Please contact Dimitra for details: [email protected]
Now You Can Go is a programme of events considering feminist thinking, art and activism, taking place across The Showroom, the ICA, Space Studios and Raven Row (1–13 December 2015).
Juxtaposing historical with contemporary positions, the series explores feminist concepts of generation and genealogy. It asks whether practices of consciousness-raising and collectivity might help us to combat the fragmentation, exhaustion and anxiety that we experience under networked capitalism. The programme draws inspiration from Italian feminisms, including the work of collectives formed in the 1970s: Rivolta Femminile (Female Revolt), Libreria delle Donne di Milano (Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective), and Lotta Femminista (Feminist Struggle).
A touchstone is the work of Carla Lonzi, the writer and cofounder of Rivolta Femminile, and her refusal of power and rejection of masculine creativity that exploits female supportive activity. This process of ‘deculturation’ entailed Lonzi’s withdrawal from her roles as an art critic, as a feminist leader, and from her relationship with her lover, the sculptor Pietro Consagra, which she documented in a dialogue between them called Vai pure (Now You Can Go).
Programme at The Showroom
Childcare is available for daytime events on 12 and 13 December for children between 6 months and 5 years, organised onsite by Little Kunst. Child minders are trusted by the organisers and DBS certified. Children and their minders will remain on site for the duration of the programme. Places must be reserved by December 1 at the latest. Recommended donation £5 or pay what you can. Please email [email protected].
Our Future Network
Thursday 10 and Friday 11 December 2015
10.30am–5pm
Booking essential: letter of interest required (see below)
Tickets £18/£10 concessions
Light refreshments provided. Please bring contributions for a vegetarian group lunch each day.
This two day workshop led by artist Alex Martinis Roe focuses on trans-generational collective politics and is a chance to experiment practically with some Italian feminist collective practices as a way to continue inventing and imagining new ones. Participants will undertake a series of exercises based on collective political practices developed by the Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective from the 1970s to today.
This workshop would suit those who have an interest in collective political practices and/or feminism. Extensive knowledge of feminist history or theory is not necessary to participate, although a willingness to engage in a short selection of preparatory readings is important.
If you would like to participate, please send a brief description of your motivations to [email protected] and await a response/further instructions.
Film Screening
Autoritratti curated by Laura Leuzzi and Giulia Casalini
Friday 11 December
7–9pm
Book through eventbrite, tickets £5/£3 concessions
Autoritratti is a performative screening employing different methodological tools, including dialogue, autobiography, cross-genre and fragmented narratives. The approach is inspired by Italian feminist thinker Carla Lonzi and her book Autoritratto [Self-portrait]- (1969), which was her farewell to the art world.
With the participation of artists Cinzia Cremona, Catherine Elwes, Tina Keane, Maria Teresa Sartori and Elaine Shemilt. Readings by Diana Georgiou.
Ketty La Rocca, Appendice per una supplica, 1972; Anna Valeria Borsari, Autoritratto in una stanza, documentario [Selfportrait in a Room, Documentary], 1977; Catherine Elwes, Postcard, 1986; Elisabetta di Sopra, Dust Grains, 2014; Elaine Shemilt, Doppelgänger, 1979-81; Maria Teresa Sartori, The Drawers, 2013; Federica Marangoni, The Box of Life, 1979; Tina Keane, Clapping Songs, 1979; Cinzia Cremona, Before You Now, 2013.
Thanks to Archivio Cavallino, Venice and the Estate Ketty La Rocca, Florence (managed by the artist’s son Michelangelo Vasta). Technical support by Adam Lockhart.
Now You Can Go seminar
Saturday 12 December
11.30am–10pm
Book through eventbrite, tickets £12/£8 concessions
Day-long seminar exploring legacies of feminist art, thinking and activism, especially in relation to the challenges of Italian feminisms.
Don’t Think You Have Any Rights: The Challenges of Italian Feminisms with talks by Fulvia Carnevale of Claire Fontaine; art theorist Marina Vishmidt (by Skype), and art theorist and Carla Lonzi specialist Giovanna Zapperi, and discussion with feminist legal theorist Maria Drakopoulou chaired art historian Francesco Ventrella. With a screening of Alex Martinis Roe’s film A story from Circolo della rosa, 2014, about the Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective.
In or Out?: On Leaving the Art World and Other Systems, a two-part discussion with speakers including artists Carla Cruz; Andrea Francke; Karolin Meunier; Raju Rage; Frances Rifkin; Forum Theatre practitioner Frances Rifkin; curator Karen Di Franco; and pedestrian and environmental activist Caroline Russell. Chaired by art historian Catherine Grant and writer and curator Gabrielle Moser. Followed by A Feminist Chorus for Feminist Revolt by Lucy Reynolds.
Intimate Acts: A feminist workshop
Sunday 13 December
10am–1pm
Book through eventbrite, tickets £5/£3 concessions
Light refreshments provided
A half-day workshop led by Kajsa Dahlberg and Laura Guy exploring collective acts of annotation, translation, and recontextualisation in relation to feminist reading and writing.
Justice for Domestic Workers Annual Event
Sunday 13 December 2015
1–5pm
Free, no booking required
The annual meeting and celebration of Justice for Domestic Workers (J4DW), an organisation of migrant domestic workers who work in private houses in the UK, that was established in 2009.
Herstories from Italy
Sunday 13 December
6–8.30pm
Book through eventbrite, tickets £5/£3 concessions
Case studies on feminist artistic and militant collectives in Italy by art historian Katia Almerini (Cooperativa Beato Angelico), writer, researcher and curator Giulia Damiani (Le Nemesiache collective) and an exposition of contemporary feminist artistic collectives by Giulia Casalini on behalf of ArchivioQueerItalia.com. Followed by keynote talk by philosopher Olivia Guaraldo on polyvocality and sexual difference and the work of Adriana Cavarero.
Now You Can Go has grown out of the Feminist Duration Reading Group which meets monthly at Space Studios in London. The programme has been developed by participants from the Feminist Duration Reading Group including Angelica Bollettenari, Giulia Casalini, Diana Georgiou, Laura Guy, Irene Revell, and Amy Tobin, and is coordinated by Helena Reckitt with Dimitra Gkitsa.
Supported by the Arts Council of England, Grants for the Arts.
With additional support from the Annual Fund, the Art Department, and the Women’s Art Library at Goldsmiths, University of London; EWVA European Women’s Video Art in the 70s and 80s’ (DJCAD, University of Dundee); IASPIS; and Electra.