Led in collaboration with the University of Victoria the Feminist Art Field School is an online course geared towards students, artists, curators and community members interested in gender, feminism and the porous boundaries between art, activism and academic practice.
Join Michelle Jacques and Chase Joynt for module 8 in the virtual field school as they sit down with artist, activist and scholar Syrus Marcus Ware to discuss the responsibility institutions have to work quickly, to make space, to work outside of their standard 12-48 month calendars and exhibition schedules, to respond to, for instance, an unforeseen summer of uprisings, because activism lives within the realm of rapid response!
Learn more at: https://aggv.ca/feminist-art-field-sc…
Check out some of the resources/institutions/artists mentioned in the full conversation:
https://syrusmarcusware.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Ca…
http://www.pasan.org/
https://www.actoronto.org/about-act/o…
https://www.routledge.com/Activist-Sc…
http://feministfreedomwarriors.org/wa…
https://canadianart.ca/essays/octavia…
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politi…
/ ursula rucker – t…
https://ago.ca/tags/teachers
https://ago.ca/agoinsider/protest-pro…
https://www.thebentway.ca/event/sips-…
https://wahc-museum.ca/wp-content/upl…
https://www.instagram.com/transpridet…
https://transpridetoronto.com/
https://www.instagram.com/fieldnotes_…
https://torontobiennial.org/artist-co…
https://www.blacklivesmatter.ca/
The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is located on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples, today known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. We extend our gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to live and work on this territory.
Video editing by Marina DiMaio.Led in collaboration with the University of Victoria the Feminist Art Field School is an online course geared towards students, artists, curators and community members interested in gender, feminism and the porous boundaries between art, activism and academic practice. …
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Intro
Intro
0:00
Intro
0:00
Feminist Art Field School
Feminist Art Field School
0:32
Feminist Art Field School
0:32
Activist Portraits
Activist Portraits
3:38
Activist Portraits
3:38
Support
Support
4:34
Support
4:34
Banners
Banners
5:03
Banners
5:03
Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript.
Intro
0:00
[Music]
0:00
[Applause]
0:05
[Music]
0:08
i’m wondering given
0:11
how
0:11
obvious it is that you question
0:15
categories and you question our
0:17
assumptions about the way
0:20
everything
0:21
is defined or understood what did you
0:24
think when
0:25
you received the invitation to
0:27
participate in something that we were
0:28
calling um a feminist art field school
Feminist Art Field School
0:32
you had me at
0:34
all of the words but you had me at field
0:36
school because
0:38
one of the things that i
0:40
have been able to do that i feel very
0:42
fortunate to have been able to do is
0:45
defend the lab
0:47
you know 18 to 20 years studying
0:49
activist history and i used to do a
0:52
community radio show called resistance
0:54
on the sound dial where i interviewed
0:56
artists and activists i did that show
0:58
for 17 years and you know got to
1:01
engage with so many incredible folks
1:04
like artists like octavia butler
1:06
activist lecture gina buyer and you know
1:09
you know artists like ursula record like
1:10
just really engage with artists and
1:12
activists who were doing this kind of
1:14
radical work you know i just feel very
1:16
thankful for the chance to have been
1:18
able to sort of study
1:20
and learn about activist history yet
1:23
there’s this incredible poster series
1:25
that comes out of just these which is
1:27
the print making collaborative and
1:29
cooperative that’s
1:31
across turtle island and they have um
1:34
sort of an activist poster series and i
1:37
have several of the ones that they have
1:39
about the different field schools that
1:41
sprung up in you know the 50s and the
1:44
60s and 70s as a way of uh teaching
1:48
communities in particular ways you know
1:50
in ways that they weren’t learning in
1:52
the traditional school system as a
1:53
subversion so the idea of a field school
1:56
is very appealing to me as an activist
1:58
because i’ve seen the revolutionary
2:00
potential of what a field school can do
2:03
and then when you bring in
2:04
the idea of in
2:06
you know imbuing it with feminist uh
2:09
politic and
2:11
um
2:11
and art
2:13
and art right and art and to be able to
2:17
bring all of those things together it
2:18
feels very uh very revolutionary you
2:22
know and i think that
2:23
we’re in a moment uh when you
2:26
asked me initially
2:28
we were in the beginning of uh the
2:31
uprisings you know the uprisings hadn’t
2:33
really begun yet of of that summer that
2:36
would fall a couple of months later
2:38
and very quickly it became apparent that
2:41
we were in a revolution you know because
2:43
revolution is not a one-time event but a
2:45
process and we are in the middle of a
2:47
revolutionary moment so
2:50
now is the moment for those principles
2:53
of each one teach one which grows out of
2:55
black revolutionary thought you know now
2:57
is the moment for
2:59
field schools now is the moment for
3:02
feminist research now is a moment to
3:04
dedicate ourselves to learning and
3:06
knowledge together
3:08
because
3:09
literally everything is at stake in this
3:11
moment
3:13
thank you you know thinking about
3:15
capturing and recording and remembering
3:17
i’m returning to um a sentence that you
3:20
offered early in our conversation about
3:23
things being beautiful in order to be
3:25
catalytic
3:26
and so i was wondering if
3:29
you
3:31
might
3:33
reflect on the role of beauty in social
3:37
movement building
Activist Portraits
3:38
yeah i mean
3:40
one of the things i’ll talk about is the
3:42
activist portrait series that i’ve been
3:44
drawing you know because it was just
3:46
this opportunity for me to
3:49
show
3:50
this outpouring of love
3:52
to these activists right you know in
3:55
that moment of reverie where they’re you
3:57
know talking about love or they’re
3:58
talking about change and uh and i get to
4:01
draw them
4:02
you know as
4:04
as their beautiful whole selves you know
4:06
and part of why i do that is because
4:08
there was the reaction
4:11
to using a super realist
4:13
approach an aesthetic
4:15
and
4:16
capturing someone in the middle of a
4:18
movement or in the middle of speech and
4:22
drawing it at that large scale i’ve
4:24
experienced it creates a response in the
4:27
viewer where they want to get to know
4:29
the person better
4:30
which is fundamentally if that could be
4:32
a good outcome of this project that is
Support
4:34
so
4:35
that would be such a wonderful outcome
4:37
that we want to care about these
4:39
activists more that we want to make sure
4:41
that they survive that we want to get to
4:44
know them we want to support them that
4:46
we want to engage with them you know so
4:49
using these drawings as a way of
4:52
ensuring a connectivity and a support
4:55
for these organizers seems uh really
4:58
essential
5:00
and so doing it through
5:02
beautiful drawings kind of draw you in
Banners
5:04
and you’re like oh come look for the
5:06
drawing and then stay for the activism
5:08
and like learn about this person and
5:10
find out more about them and want to
5:12
know
5:13
um you know that’s really a big thing
5:15
and i think that with
5:17
you know our activist aesthetics you
5:19
know the ways that like i’m so in love
5:22
with banners you know i’m just so in
5:25
love with banners i just think about
5:27
them
5:28
i they’re such an underestimated tool of
5:31
the revolution because of course we use
5:33
them
5:34
to
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set the stage we use them to block
5:38
traffic we use them to literally hide
5:41
people when the police come in so that
5:43
people can kind of get behind them and
5:44
get away we use them in all of these
5:47
beautiful ways and it’s that moment
5:50
where the artist has finished making the
5:52
banner they’ve dropped the banner off or
5:54
they’ve you know shown up in the morning
5:55
with the banner and we’re setting up for
5:58
the press conference we’re setting up
5:59
for the rally and the banner gets
6:01
unfurled and everybody is just like oh
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