Do You Wish To Direct Me? Contemporary artists under the influence of feminism

The talk was given as part of a discussion 'Dialogues on Conflict: Feminist Perspectives and Art Practice,' organized by Artes Mundi at Swansea University. Other speakers were Holly Ingleton, Emely Neu, Heather Phillipson and Sue Williams. Following their presentations the speakers took part in a panel discussion.

'Do You Wish To Direct Me?' took its cue from an issue of the queer feminist collective LTTR’s journal of that name. The journal issue, in turn, riffed on the 1973 video ‘Now’ by Lynda Benglis.

This prompted a discussion about the response of contemporary artists to the queer/feminist past. The lecture touched on the rediscovery of neglected female, feminist and queer artists; the invention of fictional artists and avatars; intergenerational queer feminist lineages and inheritances; Catherine Grant’s discussion of artists as 'fans' of feminism; Elisabeth Freeman’s concept of ‘temporal drag; and how the unintentional mis-telling or mis-hearing of certain iconic artworks can have a generative effect on future artistic and scholarly efforts so that they operate in a manner akin to memes.

Artists discussed included Sarah Pucill; Louise Fishman; Sonia Boyce; Faye Green; LTTR; Ridykulous; Roee Rosen; Janine Antoni; Sharon Hayes; Allyson Mitchell.