The Perfect Exhibition
Lily, Lienne, Bethany, Nadira Tabitha, Christie - Young Women Artists
The Perfect Exhibition was held at the 310 Gallery in New Cross, part of the Centre for Arts and Learning at Goldsmiths university. The exhibition was developed and curated by the six young women artists who collaborated in the PhEminist Skins of Resistance research project.
The room for deep reflection
After participating in the various phEminist explorations exploring personal stories, Western art history, media images, life drawing, body confidence through creative practice, the YWAs went through a process of analysing their work, discussing ideas about what they wanted to say and who they wanted to say it to. After various idea mapping sessions the conclusion was that they wanted to challenge their peers as well as other women, to consider their relationship with their body and question and support conversations that highlighted any negative associations. They wanted to challenge destructive ways of thinking about and living in our bodies to help promote a positive change. It was decided an exhibition would be the best platform to do this as we had the opportunity to use the 310 Gallery at Goldsmiths University. Being outside of the school, this became an important space as the YWAs wanted to discuss their ideas with women of all ages and take it outside of the classroom and the school context.
What became an important part of the exhibition was to share their experiences from the research. The space became divided up into two separate areas, the first room, which the audience entered was considered a room for reflection and was where the YWAs life drawings were displayed. Historical paintings of the female nude were layered between their art works and the audience was invited to add to the display by writing on labels their thoughts, reactions and feelings about the images.
As part of the process of reflecting on the female body in art history the YWAs also wanted to make a statement about this history. To do this Nadira and Tabitha developed a performance. Set in an auction house, a painting of a female nude by the artists Cranach was up for sale. As Nadira was in the process of selling the painting, Tabitha, inspired by the feminist art group the Guerrilla Girls, interrupted the process dressed as an activist wearing a Gorilla mask. The auction halted and Tabitha gave a speech challenging the historical ideas of women bodies and asks the audience to reconsider their relationship with their own body.
Tabitha's speech
Stop the auction!
The way females are portrayed in society is wrong!
Most of you don’t even look in a mirror without pointing out your flaws, but why?
Why is it that we cannot embrace who we are?
Except yourselves, you should be looking at paintings that are looking at women who show who they are, not who they are supposed to be.
Don’t hide yourselves, be true, be honest, be you.
The fun room
The second space was constructed as an area where more open conversations could be had with the audience. The YWAs wanted the audience to engage with the exhibition rather than just look at it, and they repeatedly spoke about how they could make the experience fun. This included the activities in the previous room where the audience could add onto the art works on the main wall space with their thoughts and opinions, as well as the performance piece that disrupted the quite spam of the gallery an changed the atmosphere making it more energised. The second room provided 'fun ways to think about and share often difficult experiences. This evolved into what the YWAs called Skin Canvas, their tattoo parlour. Am important aspect of the exhibition was that audience members would leave with a reminder to love themselves. This reminder came in the form of a henna tattoo. Each audience member was invited to sit with one of the YWAs who asked them to share an aspect of their body that they were uncomfortable with. As they discussed the reasons for this dislike and affirmative comment was left on the audience members skin. For example, one person shared that they 'did not like their body', so the henna tattoo stated 'I love my body'. The idea was that as the audience member left the space, they would continue to remember the conversation and to hopefully question where these feelings had originated and challenge them.
Although the sound quality of the film below is not great, hopefully you can get a sense of the exhibition. Bethany introduces the exhibition, and Nadira and Tabitha lead the performance.
The room for deep reflection
After participating in the various phEminist explorations exploring personal stories, Western art history, media images, life drawing, body confidence through creative practice, the YWAs went through a process of analysing their work, discussing ideas about what they wanted to say and who they wanted to say it to. After various idea mapping sessions the conclusion was that they wanted to challenge their peers as well as other women, to consider their relationship with their body and question and support conversations that highlighted any negative associations. They wanted to challenge destructive ways of thinking about and living in our bodies to help promote a positive change. It was decided an exhibition would be the best platform to do this as we had the opportunity to use the 310 Gallery at Goldsmiths University. Being outside of the school, this became an important space as the YWAs wanted to discuss their ideas with women of all ages and take it outside of the classroom and the school context.
What became an important part of the exhibition was to share their experiences from the research. The space became divided up into two separate areas, the first room, which the audience entered was considered a room for reflection and was where the YWAs life drawings were displayed. Historical paintings of the female nude were layered between their art works and the audience was invited to add to the display by writing on labels their thoughts, reactions and feelings about the images.
As part of the process of reflecting on the female body in art history the YWAs also wanted to make a statement about this history. To do this Nadira and Tabitha developed a performance. Set in an auction house, a painting of a female nude by the artists Cranach was up for sale. As Nadira was in the process of selling the painting, Tabitha, inspired by the feminist art group the Guerrilla Girls, interrupted the process dressed as an activist wearing a Gorilla mask. The auction halted and Tabitha gave a speech challenging the historical ideas of women bodies and asks the audience to reconsider their relationship with their own body.
Tabitha's speech
Stop the auction!
The way females are portrayed in society is wrong!
Most of you don’t even look in a mirror without pointing out your flaws, but why?
Why is it that we cannot embrace who we are?
Except yourselves, you should be looking at paintings that are looking at women who show who they are, not who they are supposed to be.
Don’t hide yourselves, be true, be honest, be you.
The fun room
The second space was constructed as an area where more open conversations could be had with the audience. The YWAs wanted the audience to engage with the exhibition rather than just look at it, and they repeatedly spoke about how they could make the experience fun. This included the activities in the previous room where the audience could add onto the art works on the main wall space with their thoughts and opinions, as well as the performance piece that disrupted the quite spam of the gallery an changed the atmosphere making it more energised. The second room provided 'fun ways to think about and share often difficult experiences. This evolved into what the YWAs called Skin Canvas, their tattoo parlour. Am important aspect of the exhibition was that audience members would leave with a reminder to love themselves. This reminder came in the form of a henna tattoo. Each audience member was invited to sit with one of the YWAs who asked them to share an aspect of their body that they were uncomfortable with. As they discussed the reasons for this dislike and affirmative comment was left on the audience members skin. For example, one person shared that they 'did not like their body', so the henna tattoo stated 'I love my body'. The idea was that as the audience member left the space, they would continue to remember the conversation and to hopefully question where these feelings had originated and challenge them.
Although the sound quality of the film below is not great, hopefully you can get a sense of the exhibition. Bethany introduces the exhibition, and Nadira and Tabitha lead the performance.
Images from the Perfect exhibition