Feminist Art Making Histories Launch

Join us for a launch event of two outputs from Feminist Art Making Histories, a project exploring the encounter between art and feminism across Britain and Ireland from the 1970s-1990s.

This event marks the Leeds launch of two interlinked outputs from the Feminist Art Making Histories project: Feminist Art Lives – an eight-part podcast series on feminist art in Britain and Ireland; and the Feminist Art Making Histories Archive – a digital archive of oral history, long-form, interviews with artists, curators and writers. 

Two members of the Feminist Art Making Histories team – Dr Elspeth Mitchell (University of Leeds) and Dr Martina Mullaney (IADT) – will reflect on their experiences of conducting interviews for the project. They will consider the methodological and ethical dimensions of oral history as feminist practice such as the negotiation of intimacy and critical distance and the responsibilities that accompany the stewardship of others' lives and recollections. 

By bringing Britain and Ireland into a shared frame, the project traces the exchanges and solidarities that have connected feminist art and activism across the two islands. At the same time, it takes seriously the colonial and political histories that bind and divide them, addressing which feminist histories and practices have been centred, and which overlooked.

Oral history occupies a distinctive place in feminist historiography. It has long offered a means of recovering experiences marginalised by institutional archives, yet it also raises questions of testimony, memory, authorship and care. What does it mean to constitute an archive from voices rather than objects? And how are interviewer and interviewee each implicated in the histories that result?

About the speakers

Martina Mullaney is a practicing artist and academic. She is the research Co-Ordinator for FilmEU European University at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin, Ireland. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, London and AHRC-funded Ph.D. from the University of Reading. Her research asks how art on and of maternity can transcend its own audience.

Elspeth Mitchell’s research explores practices and theories of feminism and visual culture. In October 2021, she joined the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at University of Leeds as the Griselda Pollock Legacy Lecturer. Elspeth has published in the areas of feminist digital art history, feminist philosophy, girls’ studies, eco feminism and artist’s moving image and cinema.

More information

This event is part of ARTFUL – a new series of public lunchtime talks organised by the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies.

The aim of the series is to bring together students, postgraduate researchers and staff to showcase our culture of vibrant research and creative practice across the school and beyond. Taking place on Mondays during termtime, speakers will include researchers, artists and practitioners.

Whilst primarily aimed at our school community, anyone interested in the series is welcome to join us. There is no need to book – please just turn up.

Find out about all ARTFUL talks in the series.

For more information, please email Mark Thorley at M.Thorley1@leeds.ac.uk.

Directions to the venue

See the campus map for location of the Liberty Building.

Directions (facing away from Parkinson steps): Follow the path to your right then turn right underneath the link building. Go all the way through campus until you reach the Clarendon Road entrance. Cross over at the traffic lights onto Moorland Road. Follow the road down. The Liberty Building is on your left.

Go through the main entrance and go straight ahead though two sets of double doors. Lecture Theatre LG.06 is situated on the lower ground floor. 

Accessibility information for the lecture theatre can be found here.

Image

Shirley Cameron’s slide collection. Photo by Elspeth Mitchell. © Shirley Cameron.