Panel discussion at Now You Can Go, “In or Out?: On Leaving the Art World and Other Systems”

Last month, I had the pleasure of chairing a panel on tactics and politics of refusal, withdrawal, and exit from the art world as part of Now You Can Go: a 10-day program events that considered feminist thinking, art and activism, that took place across The Showroom, the ICA, Space Studios and Raven Row in London, UK from 1–13 December 2015. The panel, “In or Out?: On Leaving the Art World and Other Systems, Part 2” asked speakers to consider the possibilities of exiting the art world through a variety of cultural and representation strategies and featured curator and archivist Karen Di Franco; artist Karolin Meunier; artist Raju Rage; and Utopia Arts Artistic Director Frances Rifkin. Video documentation is now available online, thanks to the terrific folks at Video in Common

Juxtaposing historical with contemporary positions, Now You Can Go 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).

Now You Can Go grows 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.

Huge thanks to Helena Reckitt for the invitation to present, and to the Canada Council for the Arts for providing the funding for my travel to attend.