Dr Elspeth Mitchell joins team researching 'hidden' and 'untold' stories of feminist art
Feminist Art Making Histories is a three-year project to record, curate, and archive 50 years’ worth of oral histories and digitised records of feminist artists in Ireland and the UK.
It aims to unearth 'hidden' and 'untold' stories of feminist art across both islands from the 1970s to the present day, so the transformative and radical advances of this generation are never forgotten.
The three-year-long project is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Irish Research Council, and is led by Professor Hilary Robinson, of Loughborough’s School of Social Sciences and Humanities, and Dr Tina Kinsella, from the Institute of Art, Design, and Technology, Dun Laoghaire.
The team is also comprised of co-investigators Dr Elspeth Mitchell (University of Leeds) and Dr Amy Tobin (University of Cambridge), and supported by project partner the New Hall Collection of Women's Art, Cambridge, and archive host, the Digital Repository of Ireland.
Dr Elspeth Mitchell is a lecturer in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies. Elspeth said:
“I am delighted to be working on Feminist Art Making Histories and continuing the School’s rich history of feminist interventions in art’s histories.
“As well as undertaking oral histories, I will be exploring how digital and feminist approaches to art historical enquiry can shape our archive of audio, visual and text-based materials.”
The stories and accompanying memorabilia the team gather – such as leaflets, tickets, and other written items – will be captured digitally and then uploaded to the Digital Repository of Ireland.
In addition to curating the digital archive, the researchers will develop appropriate methods to collate and present such a resource and share their methods at the Centre for Digital Humanities, Cambridge, to benefit artists, historians, curators, museologists, teachers and digital resource developers.
The archive will be an invaluable resource for artists, art students, historians, cultural policy-makers and many others whose work touches on feminist art.
Follow Feminist Art Making History on Twitter.
Image
Alexis Hunter, photograph taken in her studio participating in Suzanne Lacy and Linda Pruess, International Dinner Party (1979). With permission of the Estate of Alexis Hunter.
In the photograph: Cate Elwes, Margaret Harrison, Tina Keane, Rose Garrard, Kate Walker, Nina Kellegren, Liliane Lijn.
