Transnational perspectives on women's art, feminism and curating
Leverhulme Trust A funded International Research Network
Our network is a systematic and enduring project that brings together researchers and curators whose interest is in museum and exhibition practice influenced by feminism. Feminism has had a major impact on the work of artists and curators for forty years, and recent years have seen major exhibitions and museum initiatives from Vienna to Los Angeles that explore art from a feminist perspective. In spite of the force of its presence in the global art world, the relationship between feminism and art collection and presentation has had little critical analysis, and we struggle to even find a vocabulary for its practices.
The main aim of our network is to share information and forge shared intellectual languages to develop a research practice, language and community that can accommodate the challenges presented by a globalized field of study. The network will organise three symposia and four workshops that will allow us to chart the research and analysis that is taking place across northern Europe and North America on feminism and curating; it will provide opportunities to develop the critical and conceptual tools for studying the work of curating in relation to feminism; and it will address specific historical and political issues in the history of art interpretation and feminism in the three regions included in the network (North America, northern Europe and post-communist Europe). As the network matures, we hope to develop our contacts to include researchers and research from around the world.
The network partners include two major museums whose research profile includes work on curating and collections- the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington D.C. and Tate Modern in London - as well as academic institutions with a special interest in feminism and art studies, including the Canadian Women Artists History Initiative at Concordia University in Montreal, and the Department of Art History at the University of Stockholm. The inclusion of museums and curators in the network alongside universities is designed to ensure that the viewpoints of practicing curators are included, and to create collegial exchange between researchers in different institutional settings.
Part of the work of the grant will be to document the partners' activities within a series of online resources, to include: webcasts or podcasts of public symposia talks; reports on the proceedings of network seminars; and an email discussion group which will be accessible to any interested researcher. To join the Feminism and Curating email discussion group, contact Bridget Millmore
