ISSUE 26: HOW DO I OVERCOME THE PATRIARCHAL BLOCKS TO MY DEVELOPMENT/NURTURE/JOURNEY AS AN ARTIST

Issue: How do I overcome the patriarchal blocks to my development/nurture/journey as an artist

Convener(s): Julia Taudevin

Participants:

Kieran Hurley
Julia Taudevin
Chris Goode
Gemma Rowen
Gabrielle Beasley
Rose Biggin
Francesca Lisette
Anna Marsland
Nell Ranney
Jonny Liron
Scarlett Plairez Commas
+ others

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

Initial responses
Media/celebrity culture/films = men’s playground (or does it?)
Money = men
The world is men’s film set
Men construct (literally) our world
Do these words (nurture/development/journey) connect with the idea of a career or of a holistic practice/position?
Stories of women in art – negated
Don’t need a consensus
Broader movement of questioning
There are as many feminisms here as there are people in this room
Feminism / gender – negative connotations
Feminism needs to be at the heart of things
Lack of resolution of the feminist movement means people now see it as a failure
Need to arm yourself as feminists – not the right words
Pressure not to go backwards / to do things that have already been ticked
The pressure to ‘innovate’
Instead, create space for what we don’t yet recognize
The market place values the ‘innovative’, we can’t guarantee we have anything new to say but stories CAN be told over and over again
Make new pathways?

What Are the Patriarchal Blocks?
Even if we can’t find the solutions, perhaps naming the obstacles can be a step forward.
Media
Imagery
Where do we see women?
Ownership (means of…)
Internal voice (“no” “you can’t”)
Where is that voice coming from?
History
Culture
Feminism as dirty word
Education
Language – too radical
- out of date
- connotations
Market place values
Work as commodity
Self as commodity
Confidence
Validation (lack of)
Definition of validation – value systems
Negotiation
Confusion
Hegemony
Old boys club
Old white boys club
Class
Shakespeare
Rejection of forms of sisterhood
My dad - language
- legitimacy
- values
- permissible
- set of choices
local blocks
heroes
Daniel
My mum
Me
Venues - culture of competition
- gate keepers
Teachers
Directors
Do people feel responsible for talking about gender anymore in the arts?
“your” “brand” of “feminism”
“sell by” date of “feminism”
Fetishisation/objectification of the performative act of getting naked

Caberet
A sub conversation
Is the context useful/generative?
Let’s have a space to take ourselves seriously and be unapologetic

What is the vision?
An attempt to find the opposite of the Patriarchal Blocks. What it is we are striving for.
Equality (not just about women)
No more insistence on the domestic
Being able to talk about injustice (?)
Freedom of identity
Permission
Shakespeare (or a whole new cannon)
Destroy the patriarchal gaze – but replace with high definition (not blindness)
Don’t accept the premise of the question
Tell stories of weakness
Non hierarchical
Success doesn’t equal value
Solidarity and support
Celebration of difference

What does this work look like?
Where?
Do you have to give up on your cultural history?
FUCK THIS SHIT

Action Point
Continue this discussion

A couple of Summarizing Sentences
which will be useful to this report

This question came from the personal and in discussion very quickly became quite a difficult discussion about the impersonal
i.e industry/systemic/structural/historical ‘blocks’.

When the language of the question was returned to, it being personal and using the holistic language of an artists’ practice rather than career, the complexity of the issue somehow became more manageable.

This was a big sprawling and passionate discussion. We discovered that the ‘blocks’ in question are so multiple – they are structural, cultural, internal... We were clearly unable to come to a solution in the form of Action Points, but we felt that collectively identifying shared concerns was a useful step. We drew a picture of the Massive Phallic Airship of Male ART, with the masses as its spectators. We were pleased with this outcome.

The moment of creating the Massive Phallic Airship of Male ART brought us together in a collective act of creativity and solidarity.