Your reports Find reports How do I overcome the patriarchal blocks to my development/nurture/journey as an artist 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 History Culture Feminism as dirty word Education Language too radical out of date connotations Market place values Work as commodity Self as commodity Confidence Validation (lack of) Definition of validation – value systems Negotiation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.