NIEPODLEGŁE: WOMAN, INDEPENDENCE AND NATIONAL DISCOURSE. ON HOW WOMAN ARE
DEPICED IN NATIONAL NARRATIVES?
Magda Lipska
In my presentation I will focus on the image of woman and womanhood shaped by in 20th- century narratives of national liberation. The point of my analyses is the exhibition Niepodległe: Women, Independence and National Discourse currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw which I prepared in frames of the reseach project Women on Aeroplanes curated by Annett Busch, Marie-Hélène Gutberlet and myself. The exhibition examines the role played by women in the historical narratives of national liberation. Taking the centenary of the revival of Polish independence as its starting point, the exhibition looks at pivotal moments in history and at various liberation movements: beginning with the year 1918, through 1945 – when the political discourse of independence expanded to include the decolonization of the global South – all the way up to 1989, when the fall of Communism ushered in a new era of globalization. The show reveals the gendered character of national narratives and strives to undermine its patriarchal order in order to shape a more diverse representation of women and the way they are depicted in history.
Magda Lipska is a curator and art theoretician. She studied Cultural Sciences at the University of Warsaw and Humboldt University in Berlin, and Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Since 2008 she is a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Her recent curatorial projects include: Niepodległe: Women, Independence and National (2018), Danwen Xing. A Personal Diary (2017), Lest the Two Seas Meet (2015), co-curated with Tarek Abou El Fetouh and After Year Zero (2015), co-curated with Anselm Franke, Annett Busch, and Heidi Ballet. She is a co-founder of the multi-local research project Women on Aeroplanes focused on the political and artistic (under)representation of women in the 1950–70 liberation movements and the initiator of a residency program for a Syrian filmmaker at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.
FEMINIST TRANSNATIONALISM: THE ACTIVIST AS CURATOR
Elke Krasny
This lecture looks at feminist activism as a form of care, and by extension, as (proto)curatorial labour. Transnational feminist activism relies on collaboration and exchange and requires intellectual, reproductive, affective, and emotional labour. Adopting a transhistorical approach, through the juxtaposition of early 20th century women-led salon culture; political, social, and art- based activism in the wake of 1975, proclaimed the International Women’s Year by the United Nations; and current 21st century art activism, the lecture emphasizes the dimension of care in activism. The suggestion of a speculative genealogy of feminist internationalism with open beginnings and open ends includes examples such as the Nardal sisters and their Clamart Salon in Paris, the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women, Suzanne Lacy’s International Dinner Party, and Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner, Too? by Patricia Kaersenhout.
Elke Krasny, cultural theorist, urban researcher, writer, and curator. Professor of Art and Education at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Krasny holds a PhD from the University of Reading, UK. Curatorial works include Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet 2017–19, together with Angelika Fitz; On the Art of Housekeeping and Budgeting in the 21st Century 2015, together with Regina Bittner; Hands-On Urbanism. The Right to Green 2012; 2018 lectures include Learning from Activism: Social-Practice in Feminist Art, Middlesex University London; Intimate Publics at the Salon, Schwules Museum Berlin; Critical Care. Architecture, Global Dwelling, and Planetary Ethics, University of Thessaly Volos; Care + Repair. Feminist Spatial Practices, WCCW Los Angeles; Wandering Wombs and Arching Bodies, UCLA Los Angeles; Gathering Feminist Resisters: Assemblies, Dinners, Salons, Tribunals, MASP Sao Paulo; Recent essays include: 'Exposed: The Politics of Infrastructure in VALIE EXPORT's Transparent Space' in Third Text 144; ‘The Salon Model: The Conversational Complex’ in Feminism and Art History Now edited by Victoria Horne and Lara Perry, and ‘Citizenship and the Museum: On Feminist Acts’ in Feminism and Museums edited by Jenna Ashton.
Screening
Ashley Hans Scheirl
Dandy Dust, AT/UK 1998, 94 min., English OV with German subtitles
Followed by a conversation between Ashley Hans Scheirl and Claudia Slanar
Welcome and introduction
Stella Rollig (General Director of the Belvedere and Belvedere 21)
Andrea B. Braidt (Vice-Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna)
Movements in Feminism / Feminisms in Movement: Urgencies, Emergencies, Promises
Luisa Ziaja, Elke Krasny, Lara Perry and Dorothee Richter
Lecture
Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat, Lucretia Revisited. On Rape
Moderated by Luisa Ziaja
Performance Lecture
Night School - Neda Hosseinyar, Marissa Lôbo, Stephanie Misa, Catrin Seefranz, Unruly Thinking: A Performance Lecture
Moderated by Elke Krasny
Lectures
Magda Lipska, NIEPODLEGŁE: Women, Independence and National Discourse. Or how Women Are Depicted in National Narratives?
Elke Krasny, Feminist Transnationalism: The Activist as Curator
Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Intersectionality and Transnational Feminism in Françoise Dasques' Do- cumentary La Conférence des femmes—Nairobi (1985)
Moderated by Lara Perry
Lecture
Françoise Vergès, The Black Woman’s Womb. Care, Capital, Race, Feminism
Moderated by Elke Krasny