Free and open to the public
Contact: tfap@cwah.rutgers.edu
Intersectional feminist art has long dealt with the oppressions and violations stemming from colonialism, slavery, and couverture. Rape, Representation, and Radicality is a full-day symposium that will explore sex, power, and justice through intersectional art and activism, academics, and healing. The forum brings academic study, intellectual discourse, and visceral candor together to create a shared space and to demand bodily autonomy.
Rape, Representation, and Radicality will address how sexual assault has affected feminist art practices, and who has power and why. What institutional changes are needed to work towards sexual justice, and how do race and gender impact the experiences and responses within the context of contemporary feminist discourse? The hidden legacy of Women of Color, within the conversation about sexual violence, sexual empowerment, artistic praxis, and art history, must be re-contextualized and revised to be included accurately. The current cultural narrative around sexual violence necessitates re-orientation to include those who are left out of the conversation. This forum will present strategies to understand, rectify, reclaim and move forward towards healing.
Symposium Chairs: Christen Clifford (Artist; The New School) and Jasmine Wahi (School of Visual Arts; Project for Empty Space)
SCHEDULE:
8:30am - 10am
Welcome and Introductory remarks:
Connie Tell, The Feminist Art Project, Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities, Rutgers University
Christen Clifford, Independent Artist, and The New School; and Jasmine Wahi, School of Visual Arts, and Project for Empty Space
The Un-Heroic Act: Representations of Rape in Contemporary Women's Art in the U.S.
Presenter: Monika Fabijanska, (Independent Curator)
Sexing the Canvas: The Rape of the Black Female Body in Art
Presenter: Indira Bailey (Penn State School of Visual Arts)
10:30am - 12:00pm: Gender, Sexuality, and Power: Social Activist Art Practices
Panelists: Suzanne Lacy (University of Southern California Roski School of Art and Design), Emma Sulkowicz (Independent Artist; Resident Artist, Museum of Arts and Design), María Magdalena Campos-Pons (Vanderbilt University), Moderator: Vivien G. Fryd (Vanderbilt University)
12pm - 12:30pm LUNCH BREAK
12:30pm - 2:00pm: Taking Back the Narrative
Conversation between Jaishri Abichandani (Independent Artist) and Christen Clifford, (Independent Artist; The New School)
Performances
Bad Woman Katya Grokhovsky
Operation Catsuit Ayana Evans
Action IV Castellanos
2pm - 3:30pm: Rewriting Narratives in the #MeToo Moment
Panelists: Natalie Frank (Independent Artist), Carmen Hermo (Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art), Naima Ramos-Chapman (Random Acts of Flyness!)
4pm - 5:30pm: Looking for Sexual Justice - Representing Sexual Violence Across Film and Video Art
Presenters: Kalliopi Minioudaki (Independent Scholar) What Rape Has to Do with Nanas? Niki de Saint Phalle's "Daddy.", and Talia Lugacy (The New School) Silence in Descent
Visible Invisibility: WoC in the Context of the #MeToo Movement
Presenters: Maria Hupfield (Independent Artist), Viva Ruiz (Independent Artist), Scheherazade Tillet (A Long Walk Home), Jasmine Wahi (School of Visual Arts; Project for Empty Space)
Healing Exercise and Finale: Christen Clifford and Jasmine Wahi
Image: The exhibition catalog, The Un-Heroic Act: Representations of Rape in Contemporary Women’s Art in the U.S.