"Knicker-Bombing"! + "GPO women in chains proclaim ‘ownership of own bodies’"

I just learned a new term and protest gesture:  "Knicker-Bombing"

Read the article below and watch the 'knicker-bombing' in the second video clip.

Reblogged from: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/gpo-women-in-chains-proclaim-ownership-of-own-bodies-1.2167670#.VSQHl81O5vM.twitter

GPO women in chains proclaim ‘ownership of own bodies’

Feminist group seeks to ‘shine light on this country and on issue of reproductive rights’ 

Members of the Speaking of Imelda performance group chained themselves to the columns of the General Post Office in Dublin for two hours on Monday as they made an unofficial contribution to celebrations of the Easter Rising of 1916.

Anthea McTeirnan 

• Topics:
• News
• Social Affairs
• Enda Kenny Taoiseach
• Jeremy Hunt
• Patrick Pearse
• United Kingdom

Wed, Apr 8, 2015, 09:52

First published:Tue, Apr 7, 2015, 16:59

 

“There is something very symbolic about us coming back. The original Proclamation was supported by some of Ireland’s ‘exiled children’ and we are some of Ireland’s exiled children coming back from abroad. We should be listened to.”

Members of Speaking of Imelda, a direct-action feminist performance group that operates from England, chained themselves to the columns outside the General Post Office in Dublin for two hours on Monday as they made an unofficial contribution to celebrations of the Easter Rising of 1916.

Alternative proclamation

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Dressed in red, the women, who operate as a collective and refuse to be named individually, read out their alternative proclamation for Ireland 99 years after Patrick Pearse marked the beginning of the Easter Rising by reading out the original Proclamation, also outside the GPO.

The “proclamation” from Speak of Imelda read: 

“Irish men and Irish women

And all who live in Ireland

In the name of citizenship

Promised to us on these steps

We declare the right of all people in Ireland to ownership of their own bodies 

And to control their own destinies”

The group, which had travelled over from London to be present at RTÉ’s Road to the Rising event, also called for repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

The amendment states: “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

The majority of Speak of Imelda’s members were born in Ireland, a spokeswoman said. Some have been living in the UK for decades, others for only a year. They also draw support from people of Irish descent.

“I know that it’s a terrible thing to say, but being outside the country has given me a different perspective on being a woman,” said a member of the group. “We see all these tragedies happening, and you are away from home and you feel helpless.

“As Irish citizens we are special. Lots of people emigrate largely because they can’t find work. They go abroad to live in more liberal societies and forget about Ireland. 

‘No longer silent’

“But we refuse to go away and be quiet. We are no longer silent. We can no longer be quiet women,” she said.

While Irish politics tends to get little international attention, the group plans to “shine the light on this country and on the issue of reproductive rights. 

“Every time an Irish politician comes to England, we will be there and raise this.”

The group had been true to their “punk, direct action, public performance origins” since they came together in 2013. 

Knickers presentation

Most notably, they made a presentation of a pair of large women’s knickers complete with “Repeal the Eighth” slogan to Taoiseach Enda Kenny during a political fundraising dinner in London in October 2014. 

The resultant “knicker-bombing” video went viral on social media.

Speak of Imelda, which favours both large pants and large social media incursions, dress in red because women from the Irish Women’s Abortion Support Group would wear a red skirt so women travelling to meet them to have an abortion in England would recognise them at airports or stations. 

The name Imelda was employed as a codename by women travelling to England for abortions between 1986 and 1995. 

“I would come back to live here, but I have a nine-year-old daughter - and I will not bring her to live in a place where she does not have bodily autonomy,” said one member of the group.

According to British Department of Heath figures for 2014, up to 10 women are thought to leave the Irish State every day to get an abortion in the UK.

Feminist Heroes to Teach Kids Their ABCs in Badass New Picturebook

Feminist Heroes to Teach Kids Their ABCs in Badass New Picturebook

http://magazine.good.is/articles/illustrated-feminist-heroes-to-teach-children-their-abcs

by Laura Feinstein

 20208

 

 574

 

 14

 

 

 

 

 

 March 25, 2015 at 9:10

http://magazine.good.is/articles/illustrated-feminist-heroes-to-teach-children-their-abcsShare on FacebookClick me! Share on TwitterClick me! Copy Link

 

A is for Angela Davis

Why just learn your ABCs when you can be empowered by them? A new illustrated children’s book from iconic City Lights press, Rad American Women A-Z, offers kids the chance to educate themselves on women’s history and the alphabet at the same time. Written by Kate Schatz and illustrated by Miriam Klein Stahl, the book was inspired by Schatz’s two-year-old daughter. As the writer told Mic, the book was created to fill the “feminist-shaped hole in children's literature,” and goes from A (for Angela Davis) to Z (Zora Neale Hurston).

Rad American Women A-Z strays from both traditional children’s and history books in more ways than one, featuring an equal proportion of women of color, as well as several members of the LGBT community. As Schatz mentioned in a press release, “I wanted to focus on the stories that aren't always part of the standard telling of women's history. With all respect to Susan B. and Rosa and Helen and Gloria, I want to try to introduce readers to women they aren't likely to have heard of.” This includes women ranging from architect Maya Lin, to prolific sci fi writer Ursula K. La Guin, to punk singer Patti Smith.

Take a look below:

 

E is for Ella Fitzgerald

 

M is for Maya Lin

 

O is for Odetta

 

P is for Patti Smith

 

Q is for Queen Bessie

 

S in for Sonya Sotomayor

 

T is for Temple Grandin

 

U is for Ursula K. Le Guin

 

X is for a world of possibility

 

Z is for Zora Neale Hurston

To see all 26 illustrations, click here.

According to its creators Rad American Women A-Z has already sold out of its first print run. You can preorder the second run from City Lights and Amazon, or request it from your local indie bookstore.

illustrations feminism graphic novels children's books feminist heroes

"Radical Acts" Seminar

Saturday, March 21, 2015
10am to 5pm
Weston Family Learning Centre, Art Gallery of Ontario

http://www.ago.net/radical-acts

Radical Acts, scheduled in conjunction with the exhibition Introducing Suzy Lake and Feminist Art Gallery (FAG)’s residency at the Art Gallery of Ontario, will explore questions of feminism, performance, and self-representation raised by the exhibition. What is a radical act? Who is visible? Who is invisible? How do we redress the incomplete history on display in most museums?  These issues will be taken up by Radical Acts, attendees: feminist artists and thinkers in a one day event that begins with structured small group conversations and concludes with open discussions generated by participants in the room, following an unconference model. With facilitator Kim Katrin Crosby (Milan).

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A daughter of the diaspora, Arawak, West African, Indian and Dutch, hailing from Trinidad and living between Toronto & New York. Kim Katrin Crosby (Milan) is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, activist, speaker and educator. In 2014, she has been an invited speaker at Princeton, Dartmouth, the University Of Texas at Austin and in Montreal at the International LGBT Film Festival and at the very first Spelman & Morehouse Pride among many others.  Her work has taken her across North America speaking on equity, liberation and care, and regularly contributes to various news outlets including the CBC. A prolific writer, she shares her work across social media and is currently Sista Ink’s Sr. Editor of Entertainment & Lifestyle, an online magazine dedicated to tattooed women of color. She is co founder and the Executive Director of The People Project, 8 years in the making; a movement of queer and trans folks of color and our allies, committed to individual and community empowerment through alternative education, art activism and collaboration. This year she was recognized by 'The Root' the premier news, opinion and culture site for African-American influencers as a young. Black feminist to watch as well as one of Autostraddle's 100 LGBT Black Women to know sharing the list with Angela Davis, Marsha P. Johnson & Mia McKenzie. She has completed a residency both under D'bi Young and Buddies In Bad Times Theatre and has curated exhibitions, cabarets, events and performed at stages across Canada. She is currently producing and curating the Buddies In Bad Times Cabaret Insatiable Sisters. She also engages in community based healing initiatives including teaching Queer and Brown Girls Yoga, and hosting yearly healing retreats for femme identified Folks of Colour and Indigenous Folks. She is also one of the owners of the Glad Day Book Shop, the oldest LGBT bookstore in the world.

Centrefold by Lynda Benglis, 1974

She's WAY more than the image below..but wow what a statement and work that is.

==============================

Lynda Benglis: ‘You cannot kill creativity’

• Text Lydia Morrish

Feminist icon and art provocateur Lynda Benglis astounded the world when in 1974 she photographed herself in the raw for Centrefold in Artforum, wearing nothing but cateye sunglasses and clutching a dildo against her groin in a stand against male-domination in the art world. Somewhat prompting her significance, some of the editors quit the magazine in protest. Benglis, now 73-years old, prolific in name and revolutionary in nature, emerged as part of a new generation of artists fashioning original approaches to sculpture and painting in the wake of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Pop Art.

Now, 50 years on, she has generated a momentous body of work discussing ideas of femininity and masculinity, nature and forms with countless different unconventional materials – from the labial-like beeswax piece Embryo I and her huge latex ‘floor paintings’ to Female Sensibility, a sensual video piece which sees Benglis kissing colleague Marilyn Lenkowsky in response to the 70s belief in a necessary ‘lesbian phase’ for ‘female artistic sensibility’. Even though she views all her works as either “drawings or paintings”, it is with her unusual choices for mediums that provoke differing feelings that are far from simply a sketch or a canvas. Her monumental structures and radical sculptures have won her the attentions and gratifications of artists like John Baldessari and Cindy Sherman who, referring to her photo in Artforum, said, “She kicked ass!”

This month she will exhibit the largest presentation of her work in the UK yet, with approximately 50 pieces on show, spanning the entirety of her career to date. The exhibition will hold several new pieces, like her recent ceramic and polyurethane works, along with several paper molds, which will be shown publicly for the first time. Ahead of the occasion, she told us how the industry’s changed, that Artforum piece and gives us some compelling advice.

Your career has spanned over 48 years and you have made a lot of work challenging the male ethos and male domination in the art world, especially in the 70s, has sexism in the industry changed?

Lynda Benglis: I don’t think of the art world now as being male dominated. There are so many woman artists since I began and I really think of both energy and talent as coming from both men and women equally. Women feel their bodies differently from men because they have different resources. I did think specifically always about the politics but I found I needed to comment at different times in my life because it seemed to be an issue, however most of the women artists I know that do work think of themselves as empowered by themselves and as women artists. It’s not really an issue now.

I remember many times I was maybe one of two women artists in an important exhibition. The numbers have changed and gone up, and there were a lot of talks and meetings. I didn’t happen to go to the meetings because I’m not really a meetings person, but if a person happens to be a woman, the confidence level has to be there in order to make the presentation of art because it’s really about art – not about whether it’s a woman or a man. It’s an issue wherever there is inequality and there are still issues in different areas of the world that exist and it is an issue. As an art form women have always made art, whether they were under bondage or not, they have always created. You cannot kill creativity.

“I don’t think of the art world now as being male dominated. There are so many woman artists since I began and I really think of both energy and talent as coming from both men and women equally. Women feel their bodies differently from men because they have different resources” – Lynda Benglis

Have you noticed anything else in the art industry change over this time?

Lynda Benglis: Yes. I’ve heard about it quite a bit that, as art is being publicised, it’s more about money since the 80s. It’s not all about it, but there are so many promoters of the situation and the talk is always about money. I think when one does have the money to produce work, which is needed, then one should do it, but to publicise it in that way and context is not of my generation. I don’t think we ever thought about the money aspect as we were happy to do it, and I think most artists of that time developed in that way. There are perhaps a lot of artists that are making works that have to do with the context and realisation of money.

You’ve been described many times as controversial, notably for Centrefold, did you feel what you were doing was controversial at the time?

Lynda Benglis: I knew it was a raw thing to do, even though it’s plastic [the dildo]! I wanted to do something that was very humanistic to challenge the ideas that I was dealing with. I knew it would be a potent image and a challenge to my work, but I felt I had to do it at that time. That was the right time in terms of the medium and Artforum was the right magazine. I had no doubt that I had to do it in the right way and it had to be the right photo, so I worked on it quite a bit.

Do you feel the piece in particular made a positive impact in terms of gender equality in the art world?

Lynda Benglis: People, particularly women, tell me that and I think that’s positive. I made them feel good about the image that wasn’t a threat or a challenge, but was an understanding that it was okay – we don’t any longer have to be the victim of the gaze. In other words, this work looked back at you, that famous saying. That’s what I intended to do. 

In your new exhibition, there’s going to be over 50 pieces of work exhibited – do you have a favourite piece?

Lynda Benglis: Well, they’re pretty much all my favourites because the intensity of something very small and something very large is usually the same in a strange way. Although the ideas may be similar as well, the intensity and ideas play off of one another so one follows the ideas and contexts to do with the variation in materials. I’m always surprised when I see a show – one that does have such a broad history – that it does seem like somebody else [curated] them. I always think, ‘well, here I’m doing it this way but then I did it that way’. Then I can identify that it is me instead of someone else.

Centrefold by Lynda Benglis, originally published in Artforum November 1974Photography and © by Arthur Gordon, image courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York

When you see such a large show you feel like someone else did them?

Lynda Benglis: I feel there’s such a distance in the way it was done and how it was done. I remember doing it and I remember the time and the way these works mark the time and the origination and history, and they very much reflect the time we were in. So I was really always experimenting with different similar ideas all through the ages here. I’m 73-years old and the times are very different, but I guess I allowed to become more sophisticated because I had so many opportunities to work through my growing experience with various different materials.

So over the past 50 years, you’ve divided your time between studios in New York, Santa Fe, Ahmedabad in India and Kastelorizo in Greece, how have these places influenced your practice?

Lynda Benglis: You can say you are what you eat or you are where you are. I think everything we do comes into the experience of the expression, absolutely.

You’ve worked with uncountable materials, from polyurethane foam, glass, bronze and stainless steel to beeswax and poured latex, why do you not limit yourself to one medium?

Lynda Benglis: I think mediums are all about form. They’re mediums that I can make sketch as I think of myself as doing drawings and paintings in these different mediums. I think of them as forms from nature, about nature and having illusion. Some are dependent on the walls, some are dependent on the floor and some are outside pieces.

What has been the best or biggest thing you’ve learned throughout your career? 

Lynda Benglis: To be yourself. If I’m teaching I encourage those young artists to find their own ‘handwriting’, so to speak, to find themselves and to be strong enough to express their ideas. 

Lynda Benglis will be on show at the Hepworth Wakefield from 6 February – 1 July