Invitation to submit material - Women, Feminism and Art in Australia since 1970

Call out for submissions from Australian artists who engage with feminism in their work.

Women, Feminism and Art in Australia since 1970 - Invitation to submit material

Professor Anne Marsh has commenced work on her Australian Research Council project ‘Women, Feminism and Art in Australia since 1970’. The project will investigate the impact of feminism on contemporary Australian art, revealing the roles and interactions between gender, race, class and ethnicity. It will analyse and interpret the history of feminism in the visual arts during the critical decades since the 1970s, and the impact of feminist thought on the ways in which Australian society views representations of women across cultural differences.

At its best, feminism must embrace the diverse nature of lived female experience. The challenge of a project such as this is to find a method that both acknowledges and celebrates this diversity. For two centuries there has been a desire for critical strategies that seek a unified, cohesive way to bring women together, but this has often been at the cost of ignoring difference at the expense of minorities. There is an urgent necessity for a contemporary Australian feminist art history that is inclusive to all Australian women artists.

Australia is experiencing a renaissance in contemporary visual arts engaged with feminist themes and issues. The best of this art stretches the traditional boundaries of its form and medium. The significance of this project will be its engagement with this phenomenon, to position it in terms of its innovation, edginess, and willingness to experiment. This current burst of confidence and activity needs to be matched by new critical and theoretical frameworks that take into account our Indigenous and multi-cultural heritage.

The project will unpack the complexities of feminism as seen through the eyes of Australian visual artists, revealing much about what women think about themselves, their place in Australian society, and how society perceives them. The project does not assume a uniform feminism, but speaks of feminisms plural and will engage with a wide-ranging demographic. This emphasis on the roles and interactions between gender, class, race and ethnicity opens up a critical dialogue within and between cultures around gender identity. In so doing the research will compel critical debate and give voice to complex and different positions, rather than a unified point of view.

There will be two books. One an edited and illustrated anthology of scholarly essays, manifestos, documents and stories, the other a textual analysis of art and feminism written by Anne Marsh. We invite you to submit material for consideration. Although the anthology and the monograph will represent a large number of artists, not all submissions can be guaranteed to be included. We are primarily interested in artists who engage with women’s issues, feminine aesthetics and/or a feminist philosophy through their art practice.

Please send up to 20 images, Curriculum Vitae of no more than three pages and a biographical statement if you have one. You may also wish to include a statement about your work in relation to feminism.

Please send digital information via weblinks, pdf or jpegs (low resolution 1 meg maximum please).

The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2020

Thank you

About the researcher: www.annemarsh.com.au

Research assistant: Caroline Phillips - www.carolinephillipsart.wordpress.com

Please direct all responses and enquiries to Caroline Phillips at the project email address:
wafamelb@gmail.com

Hardcopy address:-
Professor Anne Marsh
Victorian College of the Arts
The University of Melbourne
234 St Kilda Road
SOUTHBANK
VIC 3006

Please let your friends and colleagues know about this call-out. We will be sending out further notices in future, apologies for any cross-postings.