Publication: “Responding to Women and Creativity”

Group Work and Chelsea Space are pleased to announce that the publication Responding to Women and Creativity is now available as a pdf and a risograph pamphlet. Responding to Women and Creativity starts with Annabel Nicolson’s work Women and Creativity (1978-80), and compiles responses given to a series of questions about creativity from a number of contemporary artists, writers and curators. The research into Nicolson’s work was the subject of a Group Work workshop at Chelsea Space in March 2021.

Responding to Women and Creativity includes a facsimile copy of Annabel Nicolson’s article “Women Talking”, first published in Feminist Arts News (FAN) in 1982. There is an introduction to the project by Catherine Grant, and a series of responses to the following questions:

What helps your creative work?

What hinders your creative work?

When you read the extracts from Annabel Nicolson’s tapes in the article “Women Talking”, do you see similarities with your own situation in 2021?

Do you think it is still important for women artists and other feminist cultural practitioners to share their strategies for enabling creative practice?

Some of Annabel Nicolson’s respondents discussed whether they needed isolation to work, is this important to you?

Many thanks to those who responded: Louise Ashcroft, Beth Bramich, Lauren Craig, Amy Dickson, Oriana Fox, Melissa Gordon, Catherine Grant, Faye Green, Deniz Johns, Abbe Leigh Fletcher, Helena Reckitt, Selina Robertson and Rachel Warriner.

To download the pdf version of the publication (either screen or print size): https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/30894/

Copies of the risograph pamphlet are available from Chelsea Space shop: https://www.chelseaspace.org/publication.html

Copies will also be held at the Women’s Art Library, Special Collections, Goldsmiths Library, free whilst stocks last: https://www.gold.ac.uk/make/

Close-up of Annabel Nicolson’s article “Women Talking”, Feminist Arts News (FAN), 1982

Introduction to Responding to Women and Creativity

Questions asked in Responding to Women and Creativity

Sample page from Responding to Women and Creativity

Faye Green, Making, 2021

Credit page from Responding to Women and Creativity

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Responding to “Women and Creativity”

Image: Photocopies from texts about Annabel Nicolson’s “Women and Creativity” project (1978-80)

5-7pm, Thursday 25th March, 2021

Join us for a workshop organised by Catherine Grant, Amy Tobin and Rachel Warriner from the Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism research network, hosted by Chelsea Space. This is an online workshop, register via Eventbrite

In response to the archival traces of Annabel Nicolson’s “Women and Creativity” tapes (1978-80), this workshop will consider the relevance of these recordings for feminist art and writing today. Made by Nicolson in the late 1970s, the tapes document a series of interviews made by women artists, asking them what helped and hindered their creative practice. The recordings were then played in listening sessions, with Nicolson presenting extracts to small audiences.

Following a similar process, the workshop will be split into two sections — the first with presentations from the organisers and the artists Marysia Lewandowska and Rehana Zaman, giving context to the session, including a series of responses to the questions raised by Nicolson in the original recordings.

The second section invites all workshop participants to respond to the questions around women and creativity from their own perspective, with time to work in small groups, and share ideas and experiences.

Further information about the workshop will be sent to participants when they have registered, including texts to read that give more detail on Nicolson’s tapes and the questions which will be discussed in small groups. Numbers are limited due to the participatory nature of this session.  

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Catherine Grant is Senior Lecturer in the Art and Visual Cultures Departments at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is currently researching the legacies of feminist histories in contemporary art. The project includes the essays “Fans of Feminism: re-writing histories of second-wave feminism” (2011) and “A letter sent, waiting to be received: queer correspondence, feminism and Black British art” (2019). She is the co-editor of Fandom as Methodology with Kate Random Love (2019), as well as the collections Girls! Girls! Girls! (2011) and Creative Writing and Art History (2012).
Marysia Lewandowska is a Polish-born artist based in London. She has been exploring the public functions of archives, museums and exhibitions resulting in projects involving the property of others. Amongst them are the Women’s Audio Archive (2009); Undoing Property? with Laurel Ptak (2013); It’s About Time at the 58th Art Biennale in Venice (2019). The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw has included the Enthusiasts Archive in their collection.
Rehana Zaman is an artist based in London. Her work speaks to the entanglement of personal experience and social life, where moments of intimacy are framed against bio politics, cultural orthodoxies and state coercion.  Cooperative methods underpin her process, structuring how works are initiated, produced and shared. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Artist Film International Whitechapel, London (2021) British Art Show 9 (2021), Serpentine, London, UK (2021), Liverpool Biennial 2018, Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh, Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018; Oberhausen Film Festival and Bétonsalon Paris. In 2019 she co-edited Tongues with Taylor Le Melle, published by PSS and was shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award in 2019. Her films are distributed by LUX Moving Image.
Annabel Nicolson is an artist film-maker and performer. From 1969-70 she ran the gallery at the New Arts Lab, London and was cinema programmer at the London Film Maker’s Coop in 1974, 1976-77 and 1992/3. She was a founder member of Circles – Women’s Film in Distribution (Circles merged with Cinema of Women in 1991 to become Cinenova); editorial contributor for Musics magazine (1976-79); and co-editor and publisher of Readings magazine (1977). Her film works and performances have been seen at museums and galleries including Acme Gallery, Hayward Gallery and the London Musicians Collective, London, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; and in film retrospectives and festivals internationally. Her solo exhibitions include Norwich School of Art Gallery (1981) and Chelsea College of Art Gallery (1988). Recent group shows include Film in Space, Camden Arts Centre (2013) and Filmaktion, Tate Modern (2012). She has taught at various art colleges including devising the Women in Art Course at Chelsea College of Arts (1987-88). 

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This workshop is supported by the Association for Art History and Chelsea Space. Dialogues is a programme of events, talks and screenings that will take place online during 2021, as we navigate the altered world around us. Devised in collaboration between Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Spaces, Dialogues will be hosted remotely and connected via Chelsea Space and UAL platforms: www.chelseaspace.orgwww.arts.ac.uk

Feminist Curating and Group Exhibitions Workshop – 26 June 2020

For this event Groupwork produced three videos with curators Abi Shapiro, Karen Di Franco & Irene Revell and Irene Aristizábal, and Rosie Cooper & Cédric Fauq, in which they discuss the group exhibitions they have worked on. You can watch these videos on the Group Work Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-CZ1DHOkRmHgq1pcMaA-ZQ.

Audio of Group Work in the Women’s Art Libray

2-5pm, Friday March 6^th 2020

We are happy to share the audio of the presentations from this workshop. Links are below. This workshop was led by Althea Greenan, curator of the Women’s Art Library, along with Lauren Craig and Gina Nembhard. As members of X Marks the Spot, an art and archive research collective, Craig and Nembhard have explored the Women of Colour Index held at the Women’s Art Library, as well as the Jo Spence archive.

Workshop members examined material in the Women’s Art Library and considered how archivists, artists and activists have sought to creatively engage with the collection. The workshop explored questions around how to approach collaborative practice through its archival traces.

The Women’s Art Library is a unique collection of material on women artists, with a growing programme of creative interventions by artists, curators, writers and archivists. It is held in the Special Collections, Goldsmiths Library, Lewisham Way, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW. This workshop was funded by the Association for Art History, the British Art Network and Goldsmiths Art Department Research Support Award. It was organised by Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Amy Tobin (University of Cambridge) and Rachel Warriner (Courtauld Institute of Art).

AUDIO RECORDINGS:
Dr Althea Greenan (Women’s Art Library curator)
Lauren Craig and Gina Nembhard (members of X Marks the Spot)

Image: Seminar participants explore archival material from the Women’s Art Library. Photo: Emily Perry.

Group Work in the Women’s Art Library

Speakers: Dr Althea Greenan (Women’s Art Library curator)
Lauren Craig and Gina Nembhard (members of X Marks the Spot)

2-5pm, Friday March 6^th 2020

Women’s Art Library, Special Collections, Rutherford Building, Goldsmiths, Lewisham Way, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW

This workshop will be led by Althea Greenan, archivist of the Women’s Art Library, along with Lauren Craig and Gina Nembhard. As members of X Marks the Spot, an art and archive research collective, Craig and Nembhard have explored the Women of Colour Index held at the Women’s Art Library, as well as the Jo Spence archive.

Workshop members will examine material in the Women’s Art Library and consider how archivists, artists and activists have sought to creatively engage with the collection. The workshop will ask key questions about how to approach collaborative practice through its archival traces.

The Women’s Art Library is a unique collection of material on women artists, with a growing programme of creative interventions by artists, curators, writers and archivists.

You will need to join the British Art Network sub-group “Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism” to attend. Please let us know if you are not already a member and we will forward your details. BAN members can claim travel expenses for attending. We also have four travel bursaries of £50 each for early career scholars, funded by the Association for Art History. Please email groupworknetwork@gmail.com to attend the workshop, or get more details.

This workshop is funded by the Association for Art History, the British Art Network and Goldsmiths Art Department Research Support Award. It is organised by Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Amy Tobin (University of Cambridge) and Rachel Warriner (Courtauld Institute of Art).

Group Work Seminar: Professor Juliet Mitchell in conversation with Professor Mignon Nixon

Professor Juliet Mitchell will discuss “Siblings, Their Heirs and Others on the Social, Horizontal Axis”, presenting a short paper followed by a conversation with Professor Mignon Nixon.

Thursday 21^st November, 5.30 – 7.00pm

Lucia Windsor Room, Newnham College, University of Cambridge,Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DF, UK

This seminar is part of the research project “Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism”, which explores the legacies and histories of group work in art since the 1970s, with a focus on feminist practices. Organised by Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Amy Tobin (Cambridge), and Rachel Warriner (Courtauld Institute of Art).

Supported by the Centre for Visual Culture, University of Cambridge.

Call for Participation: Group Work seminar

“Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism” is a research project that explores the legacies and histories of group work in art since the 1970s, with a focus on feminist practices. Questions under consideration include: what would a (feminist) art history look like if it refused to tell a history of individual artists? And how did the collectivity inherent in much feminist organising in the 1970s and 1980s feed into artistic practice? This project is in its early stages of formation, with a focus on thinking through the legacies of consciousness-raising in art, as well as other political group work that intersect with feminist politics, including the peace movement, anti-racist and women of colour activism, and lesbian, gay and transgender activism.

As part of this project, scholars of all levels are invited to join a seminar group that will meet once a term to discuss topics under the Group Work theme. The first meeting will take place at the Courtauld Institute of Art on the 28^th June 2019, and will be followed by three seminars at the University of Cambridge, Goldsmiths and the Courtauld in the academic year 2019-20. After this first year, there will be a chance to assess the format and duration of the seminar.

Applications are welcome from scholars engaged in art historical writing. To apply, please write a 300 word proposal on the topic you would like to develop over the course of the seminar. Topics are welcome from all geographical contexts and periods, although the emphasis will be on feminist-influenced art practices from the 1970s onwards. There will be an exploration of UK feminist communities and connections between the UK and the US in the initial series of events that will take place alongside the seminar group meetings, drawing on expertise from the Centre for American Art at the Courtauld and the Women’s Art Library at Goldsmiths. We are exploring possibilities of funding that focuses attention on the UK, but then links beyond this geographical context.  

This research project is being developed by Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Amy Tobin (Cambridge) and Rachel Warriner (Courtauld). The three project partners will be exploring funding possibilities, so with your application please indicate: what travel funds you would need to attend seminars in London and Cambridge; whether you are able to attend all four seminar meetings. For the first event at the Courtauld  on 28^thJune 2019, there is funding for early career researchers to cover travel expenses upto £50 per person.

Deadline for applications: 24 May 2019. Please send a CV, covering letter and 300 word proposal detailing the research topic to be developed over the course of the seminar. Please also give details of funding needed for travel, where necessary (see above for details). Applications should be sent to: groupworknetwork@gmail.com

UN/COMMON RITUAL

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square, Penton Rise, King’s Cross, London

Wednesday 29 May 2019
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

This event focuses on Barbara McCullough’s pioneering short film Water Ritual 1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979) including a screening of the film. Rizvana Bradley (History of Art and African-American Studies, Yale University) will give a presentation on the work, introducing its themes and ideas. This will be followed by a conversation with Amy Tobin (Kettle’s Yard and History of Art, University of Cambridge) which will consider its relationship to feminism, collectivity, and ecology.

This will be the second event of the Group Work Network which considers the ways in which collectivity and collaboration supports practice. It is kindly sponsored by the Centre for American Art, Courtauld Institute of Art. Group Work events are co-organised by Catherine Grant, Amy Tobin and Rachel Warriner.

Rizvana Bradley is Assistant Professor of the History of Art and African-American Studies at Yale University. She received her PhD from Duke University, B.A. from Williams College, and participated in the Whitney Independent Study program. Bradley’s research intersects with anticolonial politics, feminist and gender studies, continental philosophy, postcolonial theory, and aesthetic theory. Her forthcoming book manuscript was awarded a Creative Capital Arts Writer’s Grant, and other writing appears in: Film Quarterly, Black Camera, TDR: The Drama Review, Women and Performance, Parkett, and Art in America. She has contributed to catalogues for the New Museum, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, ICA Philadelphia, Art Basel, the Berlin Biennale, and Whitechapel Gallery, London.

Amy Tobin is Lecturer in the Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge and Curator at Kettle’s Yard. Her PhD research focused on art and feminism in Britain and North America in the 1970s, and particularly at group work and collaboration between women. Her research has been published in British Art Studies, MIRAJ and Tate Papers and in books including Other Cinemas: Politics, Culture and Experimental Film in the 1970s (IB Tauris, 2017), Feminism and Art History Now (IB Tauris, 2017), The Art of Feminism (Chronicle and Tate, 2018) and A Companion to Feminist Art (Blackwell, 2019). In 2017 she wrote and edited 14 Radnor Terrace: A Woman’s Place for the exhibition 56 Artillery Lane at Raven Row in London, this year her co-edited book (with Jo Applin and Catherine Spencer) London Art Worlds: Mobile, Contingent and Ephemeral Networks was published by Pennsylvania State University Press. She is currently working on a book on feminism, art and sisterhood.

This event is free and open to all. Located at the Research Forum Seminar Room, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square, Penton Rise, King’s Cross, London, WC1X 9EW

Organised by Dr Catherine Grant – Goldsmiths, Dr Amy Tobin – Kettle’s Yard and Cambridge University, Dr Rachel Warriner – The Courtauld Institute of Art

Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism

Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism is a collaboration initiated by Dr Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Dr Amy Tobin (University of Cambridge) and Dr Rachel Warriner (Courtauld Institute of Art). With a focus on feminist practice, this research network examines the significance of group work, through a range of events in order to consider the implications of approaching the art world from the point of view of the relationships, collaborations and networks that support artistic production, display and reception.