with Kathy-Ann Tan
Duration: Aug 12 – Sep 9, 2021
Fee: 172€
Max seats: 30
Enroll before: Aug 8, 2021
Dedication: 3 hrs/week
This online course will explore intersectional feminism in relation to art and curatorial practice. While important and well-known feminist interventions have been made in the art world since the 1980s by groups such as the Guerrilla Girls, less sustained attention has been paid to BIPoC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) feminist collectives that seek to redress the intersectional nature of oppression and structural racism in the arts and culture.
The course will center the work of BIPoC-led feminist art collectives around the world that speak to the importance of differentiating between the plurality of lived experiences of women*. In particular, we will look at the ways that intersectional feminists have developed empowering strategies of navigating the dominantly white-led, hetero-masculinist spaces in the art world.
To gain a solid understanding of the theory behind contemporary intersectional feminist art and curatorial practices, we will also be discussing the works and collaborative projects of influential BIPoC feminist theorists such as Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa. Participants will draw on this theory to reflect on how they can apply these ideas to their own artistic and curatorial practices.
Reading material and links to online resources will be provided.
Week 1: Introduction.
Introduction to the program and course overview.
This is a one-hour-only welcome session. The lecturer will introduce the program and participants will introduce themselves. No prior preparation is necessary.
Week 2: Intersectional Feminisms in Art
This week will present an overview of intersectional feminism as a theory and practice, as a methodology and mode of intervention in the arts and culture.
Week 3: BIPoC art collectives and projects
In this session, we will discuss some BIPoC art collectives and projects that center the stories and narratives of women* of color.
Week 4: Queer intersectionality
This week will focus specifically on the work of queer and gender non-conforming BIPoC artists, curators and cultural practitioners who are challenging the status-quo and shifting traditional understandings of feminist and LGBTIQ activism in the arts.
Week 5: Intersectional Feminisms in institutional contexts
In this final week, we will round up with a practical session that shares some resources and strategies informed by a commitment to practicing intersectional feminism in institutions.
Kathy-Ann Tan is a Berlin-based curator, writer and independent scholar of visual art and performance, postcolonial and decolonial theory, and gender/queer studies. She is interested in alternative models of art dissemination, exhibition-making and institution-building that are attuned to issues of social justice in the contemporary moment. Her ongoing project on decolonial aesthetics aims to collaboratively build a forum for artists and curators to develop ways of interrogating colonial narratives. As a former academic, she has experience in teaching, research, publishing and public speaking. Kathy-Ann is currently pursuing an MA Curatorial Practice at University of Bergen, Norway (2019–2021).
