re.act.feminism is an ongoing archive and research project exploring the multitemporal forcefield of feminism(s) and performance art. Evolving in multiple iterations, the project has so far featured more than 180 feminist and / or queer artists and collectives in various exhibitions and events across Europe, online and in print. re.act.feminism # 3 takes the existing online
as its starting point and experiments with interventions and expansions through curatorial drifts.
re.act.feminism #3 evolves in several thematic chapters. For its pilot phase three guest curators - Sofia Dati (Brussels), EVBG (Marie Sophie Beckmann & Julie Gaspard) and Suza Husse (Berlin, respectively) - were invited to choose two artists each to create new performative works for the digital realm, who, in turn, select artists and works from the previous re.act.feminism projects that are meaningful to them.
Sofia Dati‘s chapter
no/thingness looks into strategies for existing and resisting with(in) the threat of annihilation through the polyphony of performative actions of
Ève Gabriel Chabanon (Brussels) and
Eden Tinto Collins (Paris). EVBG’s notion of
dis/appearing subjects implies the subversion of gender roles by digital means in the works of
Anni Puolakka (Helsinki) and
Giulia Essyad (Geneva). For her chapter entitled
revenge ~ avatars and manyness* Suza Husse examines together with artists
Oreet Ashery (London) and
Verena Melgarejo Weinandt (Vienna/Berlin) anti-colonial, queer and feminist strategies of resistance motivated by collective practices. Artists featured from the re.act.feminism archive include
Tereza María Díaz Nerio,
Jakob Lena Knebl,
Jumana Manna,
Senga Nengudi,
Yeni and Nan.
The three chapters explore performative modes of being, of persisting and resisting, that sidestep or complicate any notion of a coherent subject that is constituted through its relationship to a world of (solid, usable, exploitable) objects. They also explore the digital archive as a performative space, which is constituted through connectivity and resonances, interferences, gaps and glitches.
re.act.feminism was initiated by Berlin-based curators Bettina Knaup and Beatrice E. Stammer in 2008 with the exhibition
re.act.feminism – performance art of the 1960s and 70s today at Akademie der Künste, Berlin. It was followed by the travelling video archive
re.act.feminism #2 – a performing archive, which toured from Vitoria Gasteiz (Montehermoso) via Gdańsk (Instytut Sztuki Wyspa), Zagreb (Galerija Miroslav Kraljević), Roskilde (Museet for Samtidskunst), Tallinn (Tallinna Kunstihoone), Barcelona (Fundació Antoni Tàpies) to Berlin (Akademie der Künste) between 2011-2013. A
catalogue was published in 2014. The archive’s online platform is still widely used today. Long motivated by a desire to expand and update this platform, the curators recently embarked on a third iteration. re.act.feminism #3 – polyphonies. interferences. drifts refers to its predecessors whilst exploring new performance practices and curatorial interventions.
To accommodate the new commissions, the website has been updated and partly restructured. It is launched with updated content on all three projects from 22 July 2022 onwards – at the opening of
MANIFESTA 14 in Pristina, Kosovo.
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