This paper analysis how British feminist Activism is shown in Digital Spaces. In the next chapters, I will focus on how British feminists both use the digital space as the medium of their agenda and examine it as a subject of their art and whether and if so, how their works contrast with other Western feminisms.
After outlining features characteristic of contemporary British feminist activism and art and their relation to the digital space, I will provide and analyze some examples of feminist analogue and digital art on the internet. Regarding the fact that the majority of scholars consider the fourth wave to have been initiated by the rise of the internet and, more concretely, social media, it is the starting point of this paper with the other waves being neglected. The first part will cover theory, whereas the second one will then closely look at how this is realized in practice. Whereas there is a relative wealth of papers examining feminism and the digital space, the research on how all this looks online is rather limited, requiring a more practical and extensive approach.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Contemporary British Feminist Activism (and/in Digital Space)
1.1. (British) Modern Feminist Ideas and Politics / Forth Wave of Feminism
1.2. Feminist Activism and/in the Digital Space
1.2.1. British Online Feminism
1.2.2. Feminist Art and/in Digital Space
2. British Feminist Art on the Internet
2.1. Analogue Art
2.1.1 Online Galleries/Websites
2.1.1.1. 100% Women, A Room of One’s Own
2.1.2. Databases
2.1.2.1. N.Paradoxa
2.1.3. Individual Websites / Blogs
2.1.3.1. Artisanal art
2.2. Digital Art
2.2.1. Websites
2.2.1.1. Girlgaze
2.2.2. Individual Websites
2.2.2.1. Comics
2.2.3. Social Media
2.2.3.1. Digital Illustrations
2.2.3.2. Photography
2.2.3.3. Videography
Conclusion
Pictorial appendix
Works Cited
Online Sources
Introduction
Because we are denied knowledge of our history, we are deprived of standing upon each other’s shoulders and building upon each other’s hard-earned accomplishments. Instead we are condemned to repeat what others have done before us and thus we continually reinvent the wheel. artist and writer Judy Chicago concludes when talking about the feminist movement, uttering the stringent necessity of a feminist art history. Therefore, the main target of this paper is the contribution to a female and feminist art history. Ever since feminism rose to a political movement in the 1960s and 1970s as part of A series of a number of civil rights protests, art has been the vehicle of its ideas. Women’s rights are artistically enveloped in works by feminist artists such as Valie Export or Marina Abramovic, hence feminism has been quick to make art its medium. Examples for feminist artworks are ranging from performances through sculptures, videos and photography. However, in times of new media emerging almost on a yearly basis, activists and artists face the need to adapt. As one of these new media, the internet has significantly influenced the way we communicate and convey and conceive of meaning. Along with other groups, feminist activists and artists have found a place to promote their artistic and political agenda. Digital illustrations, comics and collages generated in image editing programs, are a popular form of images combining drawn pictures and verbal messages. Though still, old forms like photography or video appear to be the tendentially most commonly used media. In the next chapters, I will focus on how British feminists both use the digital space as the medium of their agenda and examine it as a subject of their art and whether and if so, how their works contrast with other Western feminisms. After outlining features characteristic of contemporary British feminist activism and art and their relation to the digital space, I will provide and analyze some examples of feminist analogue and digital art on the internet. Regarding the fact that the majority of scholars consider the fourth wave to have been initiated by the rise of the internet and, more concretely, social media, it is the starting point of this paper with the other waves being neglected. The first part will cover theory, whereas the second one will then closely look at how this is realized in practice.
Whereas there is a relative wealth of papers examining feminism and the digital space, the research on how all this looks online is rather limited, requiring a more practical and extensive approach.
1. Contemporary British Feminist Activism (and/in Digital Space)
1.1. (British) Modern Feminist Ideas and Politics / Forth Wave of Feminism
Substantially, British feminist activism can be situated within the global feminist movement, as it shares a variety of features, particularly, with other Western feminisms.
Generally, scholars divide the feminist movement into three phases, with a fourth just emerging. Though the onset and shape of the fourth wave of feminism remains widely disputed, many scholars locate its beginnings in the 2000s, considering its emergence the response to a range of incidents such as the 2012 gangrape and subsequent death of a woman in India and Donald Trump’s inauguration. “By bringing second and third wave feminists together to confront a new and devastating reality that involves us all” (Kaplan 55), existing ideas and goals are taken up and tied into the new discourse in the attempt to further expand gender equality, though focus has been shifted to new concerns, too. The normalization of “everyday sexism” (Chamberlain 188) is challenged in both national and international offline and online campaigns such as the hashtag campaigns introduced in the following chapter. Key examples of issues dealt with are the critique of capitalism, technology as a gendered space, rape culture and the associated phenomenon of victim shaming, bodily autonomy, sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination and violence, pornography, ethnicity alongside religion and pluralistic identity but also the on-going debates on reproductive rights, mental health issues as well as equal pay. What is more, modern feminists have been interested in the representation of women in media, literature, politics and business, creating art as well as both online and offline campaigns and projects. In the attempt to capture how girls and women perceive the world, users of the hashtag #GirlGaze; which will be looked at more closely later; are trying to change the way we look at women. (Looft) (Britannica) The movement now also includes men and all other genders, who all passively or actively take a stance against sexism. (Aune) Essentially, like other Western feminisms and with organizations such as Sisters Uncut, British contemporary feminism understands itself as intersectional, global and inclusive of difference in that it shelters persons oppressed by race, sexual identity and orientation: This new reality ideally cuts across racial, cultural, ethnic and national divides (Kaplan 55). Accordingly, in their proactive approach, forth wave feminists firmly believe in the right to make personal choices inside and outside patriarchally constructed societies, embracing the motto and promoting individuality and encouraging women to acknowledge and appreciate the complexity of their identities. (Rivers 24) Collaterally, language has been adapted, with new expressions trying to aptly capture a person’s gender and sexual identity, emerging. (Munro).
Practically, on social platforms, feminists organize themselves in marches and movements like the global Women’s March and the MeToo movement, both of which raise awareness of sexual harassment and violence by making for a safe haven for victims and encouraging women from all around the world to speak up and stand up to their abusers, with many national spin-off campaigns following. Importantly, it has managed to bring down several prominent men, amongst others, in business, the entertainment industry and politics. (Philips) (Negar) (Rampton)
1.2. Feminist Activism and/in the Digital Space
Suggesting the modern feminists’ usage of digital space - for e.g. marches and demonstrations - as the distinguishing feature of the fourth wave, scholars even almost unanimously agree on the status of the fourth wave as an exclusively online phenomenon. In general, some of the many advantages of and unique to the digital social networking are: accessibility to everyone, its versatility and the possibility to reach millions of other users in a groundbreakingly fast time at a very low price. This has significantly democratized communication and facilitated participation in discourse for previously underrepresented groups, allowing for more diversity. In feminist contexts, social media is even considered highly politicized, designated “as spaces with a [certain “political” character in self-representation] in which gendered representations are shaped in specific mediated contexts” (Caldeira 4) and therefore, often referred to as “do-it-yourself-feminism” (Drüeke 1) and categorized as “everyday activism” (Vivienne). Besides the vernacular aspect inherent to social media, it makes for a space where persons from entirely different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds can meet. (Johnson 10) This enables “call-out culture”, which renders visible oppressive behaviors, be it homophobic, xenophobic, sexist or anti-LGBT attitudes channeled on the internet. (Arditi) (Mendes 18) As the expression already gives away, along with participating, in actively engaging in social media activism by “talk[ing] back” (Keller 4) and sharing their stories and being able to publicly hold their assailants accountable. In so doing, women are provided with a feeling of togetherness and the hope for justice, contributing to the creation of a collective narrative based on individual experiences, fostering a feeling of community and thus, bringing forth social change in the form of elimination of patriarchy. All this is based on the so-called “consciousness-raising groups”, defined as “[…] the use of group process for the transformation of individual awareness from a personal to a political frame of reference.” (Larson), which facilitate the organization of feminist movements. (Caldeira 24) (Negar) Digital media has, thusly, transformed feminist action into “networked feminism” (Wands 27), leading to a proven increase in the interest in politics and social issues among societies. (Jackson 35) In its versatility, digital feminist activism today comprises feminist blogging, the creation and circulation of feminist memes, the popularity of feminist hashtags and the use of other social networking platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Tumblr to produce feminist messages, images, and identities […] to explore their emerging feminist identities (Keller, 2015, 2016), create feminist solidarity and collectivities (Keller et al., 2018; Retallack et al., 2016), cultivate new modes of feminist cultural critique (Rentschler & Thrift, 2015), challenge normative beauty and body standards (Pham, 2015), and learn, as well as teach, feminist history [and] share personal experiences and, in doing so, raising awareness about (previously) taboo topics (Keller: 3).
On the contrary, though, some opt for platforms such as Tumblr for their sense of anonymity. (Keller 4f) This can be put down to the fact that, on social media, visibility stems from the invisibility of the individual, relying on the voice and hence disappointing the patriarchal expectation of a female body. (Fox) (Way 181-201)
1.2.1. British Online Feminism
In recent years, there has been a range of feminist campaigns standing up for a variety of causes. Apart from websites, a widespread and popular strategy to disseminate content quickly and effectively by means of the # key is hashtag feminism. Hashtags can give away the post’s content, summarizing it and, thus, increasing its visibility by showing it to users who are already following similar accounts. The following are some examples of feminist campaigns:
1. “No More Page 3”: British campaigners protesting women being printed naked on page three of the newspaper The Sun. In 2015, they managed to have it withdrawn. The has been an equivalent called Stop Bild Sexism in Germany. (Guardian)
2. “Everyday Sexism Project”: After experiencing sexual harassment herself, in 2012, British journalist and writer Laura Bates started the platform, seeking to offer women a space to elaborate on their experiences of everyday instances of sexual harassment and violence, eventually aiming at raising awareness of the extent of the problem. It allows sharing and commenting content posted to the website. (everydaysexism)
3. In the effort to situate feminism within recent political events and thus, demonstrate its importance and assistance, some of the most important projects centered on supporting the pre-Brexit Remain campaigns. The art project Keep It Complex-Make It Clear – an intersectional and -generational web project – is committed to bringing people together and encouraging them to share their sexist, homophobic and xenophobic experiences. It sees itself as […] a collaborative and evolving organisation which confronts political issues through ideas and action. It’s about using art to have conversations with people you don’t usually talk to. It’s about not giving in to fear and apathy. We work collaboratively to run events, curate workshops, facilitate discussions and create campaign materials. Keep It Complex is about making clear what we want, without simplifying discussion: a peaceful, caring, angry, anti-austerity, factual, DIY, transnational, struggling, messy, family-friendly, queer, inclusive, intergenerational, generous, diverse society. (Keep It Complex)
4. Pregnancy and motherhood have been essential subjects in contemporary feminist discourse. Mainly in response to claims that women need to decide on one thing, artists set up artistic campaigns such as Desperate Artwives and Procreate Project, in which they look at their roles as both artists and wives/mothers and how day-to-day duties’ affect their artistic creation. (Jones)
1.2.2. Feminist Art and/in Digital Space
Like in case of activist activity, new media has also significantly influenced artistic processes and production in restructuring and “recombin[ing] old and new knowledge to produce significant shifts in the understandings of concepts, forms and matter.” (Fernandez 302). This applies to feminism in that in its innate feature of novelty and indelibility, online platforms offer fresh possibilities, thus, help feminist art to survive. As illustrated in the previous chapter, feminist activism is eclectic, with feminist art comprising net art - such as digital illustrations and comics - , photo- and videography, networked performance, installation, video games, remixes and many more, all of which are used as a means of materializing current issues pointed out in chapter 2 and elaborated on throughout the next chapters. Thus, art and new media are connected in two ways: the digital space as a medium of art and the conceptualization of the relationship between art, society and the implications of new media on both as a subject of art.
Given the wide range of online platforms’ possible uses, the art world has adopted websites, blogs and social media for various reasons. Ranging from websites to social media, the cyberspace has become vital for feminist digital art history. Besides indices including female and feminist art such as the French database AWARE, those same tools can be used for both online exhibitions and as companions of analogue exhibitions. Against the backdrop of art, once again, social media play have a key role in the presentation and swift dissemination of both analogue and digital art, with accounts such as Guerilla Girls and @thegreatwomenartists drawing attention for serving as archives, challenging and reconstructing the accepted, largely male-dominated canon. A handful of scholars have highlighted the significance of online platforms as “[…]“permanent” accessible alternatives to existing print format exhibitions histories [offering] viable models for documenting and analyzing exhibitions differently.” (Greenberg) What is more, a new form of feminist art critique has emerged. Individuals as well as exhibitions such as Technology and Art have sparked criticism for the representation of technology as masculine and men as the active part in the online world, while making out women as passive and more of consumers, supportive of established patriarchal social structures. This conception has been challenged by net artist Cornelia Sollfrank, who hacked into the network of an art competition to add 127 women artists, though, eventually, none was awarded a prize. Some more collective initiatives aiming to examine, reveal oppressive dynamics between technology, arts and culture and help reach diversity in the artworld, FemTechNet, Deep Lab and Fembot Collective offer research projects as well as publications and various courses. Google Arts & Culture, one of more mainstream platforms, has contributed to the establishment of a female art history by starting projects and exhibitions centering on gender, culture and society. All this brings to the foreground how the gendered, assumed as male, gaze dominates the construction of search engines, databases and collections and which ways there are to reshape it. Both as bearer and subject of art, the digital space makes for an inclusive space open to, in particular, marginalized and underrepresented groups in rendering visible absences. (Brown Part 4)
2. British Feminist Art on the Internet
2.1. Analogue Art
2.1.1 Online Galleries/Websites
2.1.1.1. 100% Women, A Room of One’s Own
Hosted by the London Richard Saltoun Gallery, 100% Women presents online versions of exhibitions, interviews and talks and much more. As the name gives away, with less known or underrepresented women artists – accordingly, also historians and curators - being offered a platform within the frame of a 12-month program, Saltoun pursues an inclusionary approach in an effort to bridge the gender gap extending across the art world. They aim to do so by encouraging collaboration, dialog as well as patronage through organizing a series of both online and offline exhibitions, events and fairs. In doing so, besides displaying their works, artists can also hold lectures on their works themselves. (Saloun, 100% Women)
Other than that, campaigns by individuals like How Do We Go on From Here? ( 2010) (fig.1) look at the heritage of feminism as well as how to use this knowledge for contemporary feminism. This is exemplified in A Room of One’s Own by Kajsa Dahlberg (fig.2), alluding to Virginia Woolf’s prolific work, displays 1000 editions of Woolf’s book annotated by the notes of their readers’. Thus, while adopting 1970s and 80s techniques, 2010s artists have developed new ways often in terms of expanding on what the capabilities of feminist art. (Dahlberg) (Jones)
2.1.2. Databases
2.1.2.1. N.Paradoxa
Paradoxa’s approach resembles the one pursued by Kajsa Dahlberg, in that it traces back the history of female artistic production. Along with publishing print journals, it curates a digital archive including resources on feminism and contemporary art as a subject of feminist art criticism. Each issue centers on a particular theme and includes articles and interviews with artists exploring selected works and aspects from a feminist perspective. Fostering more than 5000 international sources in the form of links – among others the Feminist Art Observatory - as well as a blog, reviews of exhibitions, books and research papers on post-1970 works of the visual arts across the sections of feminist art galleries, museum, manifestos and many more, the database aims to shed a light on female artists and their works, to provide a more in-depth and elevated insight into the area. In doing so, it contributes to attempts of outlining a feminist art history. With the help of technology, discussion and collaboration are facilitated to sustainably impact the artworld. Besides, N.Paradoxa offers a series of courses based in the book Feminist-Art-Manifestos: an Anthology on 30 manifestos by artists and authors from international artists to help read feminist art as international or rather trans-national. (Paradoxa, Blog, About) (Routledge 92-93)
2.1.3. Individual Websites / Blogs
2.1.3.1. Artisanal art
Besides the more common artforms mentioned above, a number of artists working with other techniques has emerged. Charlotte Edey, one of these artists and a woman of color herself, primarily refers to her work as implementing “myth, mysticism and femininity inform[ing] exploration of the intersections of identity and the spiritual, with a focus on the experience of womxn of colour.”. Besides working with print, she also creates tapestries and embroideries. (Edey, Biography) The way Edey explores gender, the representation of female bodies and ethnicity, or more concretely ethnic hair, is generically demonstrated in this woven tapestry. (fig.3)
Another artist, Sally Hewett creates 3D portraits inside embroidery hoops. In what are depictions of often societally denigrated body parts, Hewett pursues an inclusionary approach by including amputated breasts (fig.4,5), C-section scars (fig.6), pubic hair (fig.7) and references to transsexuality in the effort to encourage body positivity. (Hewett, Galeries) (Hewitt, Instagram)
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