The Feminist Lecture Program are excited to announce a brand new collaboration with the Vagina Museum! The same amazing online weekly feminist content you expect from us, now hosted by the world’s only bricks and mortar Vagina Museum!
CLASS DESCRIPTION
We welcome back Parumveer Walia to The Feminist Lecture Program for a lecture exploring ‘The Abject’, in Feminist Art History…
If you’ve never heard of it, ‘Abjection’ or ‘The Abject’ is a concept first suggested by Feminist Writer Julia Kristeva in the 1980s. Though ‘The Abject’ encompasses quite a complex set of psychological and philosophical ideas, it essentially describes a uniquely human repulsion with the inner workings of our own bodies; urine, excrement, menstrual blood, semen and other bodily fluids are often ‘taboo’, deemed inappropriate for public display or discussion.
Kristeva memorably describes; ‘refuse and corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live’ ‘These body fluids, this shit are what life withstands, hardly and with difficulty, on the part of death.’
As we can see here - the abject is not a specific thing, It is rather a peculiar type of response, a powerful mix of curiosity and revulsion, suggesting that ultimately, we are drawn to that which repels us.
In Kristeva’s work, and in the work of many feminist writers inspired by her, Women are related more closely to the Abject through female bodily functions such as menstruation, childbirth and lactation, all of which transgress the normal boundaries of the body. Relating to the idea of the ‘Monstrous Feminine’, the ‘Abject’ drives to the core of how female bodies are psychologically constructed as different from male bodies, often percieved as somehow monstrous, dangerous, and unclean.
In this lecture, we will explore the theory of Abjection, specifically relating to Art History and Feminist Discourse. We will explore our relationship to ‘bodily material’, and thereby ourselves and each other, through examination of artworks that utilize bodily by-products such as – urine, semen, menstrual blood, feces, et cetra. Together, we will explore how these artworks harness the Abject and produce an encounter that centers our relationship to the parts of us that lie beyond care and social acceptability.
Studying Painting, Photography, Sculpture, and more, this class will help attendees better understand the Abject as a mode of meaning-making beyond (and against) cultural concepts of ‘the proper’ and its historical use in the Arts. We will reveal the gendered politic ingrained in the subject: while the industry revered the ‘brave’ genius of artists like Marc Quinn for his Shit Painting (1997) and Shit Head (1997), the abject looks different when in the hands of Women Artists, (like Carolee Schneemann and Sarah Lucas) who initially, and perhaps still, are not afforded the same liberties as their male counterparts.
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
Parumveer Walia is an emerging photographer and writer/curator born in Chandigarh, India and currently working off of the unceded and stolen territories in so-called British Columbia, Canada. Walia’s practice examines systemic frameworks that define us into gender and shapes the political experience of occupying a Body, approached in his practice through a Queer and intimate lens.
His rigorously maintained practice has seen him acclaimed internationally. Notably, his works have been exhibited in Poland with BINNAR (2021), published in ArtHole magazine(2020), and his photo-series received a Special Mention at the Ninth Sustainable Development Conference in India (2021). After completing a residency in Serbia with the Belgrade Art Studios (2021), his photography and writing was published in the photobook ‘Photology’ , which was since been acquired for the libraries at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, as well as the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales. He has recently concluded a research project with the Libby Leshgold Gallery in Canada and is curating his next exhibition, for 2024.
UPCOMING SESSIONS WITH THE FEMINIST LECTURE PROGRAM
Friday 26th January
Luisa Maria MacCormack
Hysterical Bodies: Gender, Medicine and Wandering Uteruses
Monday 29th January
Alekzsandra Rokvity
Endometriosis Activism: Making the Invisible Visible
Monday 5th February
Eleanor Medhurst
Dressing Dykes: A History of Lesbian Fashion
Monday 12th February
Parumveer Walia
Exploring the the Abject: Excreta, Feminism and Performativity in Art History
Monday 19th February
Holly Isard and Jo Harrison
Breastfeeding as Work: The Contradictions of Breastfeeding Under Capitalism
Monday 26th February
Sophie Paul
READING MAKES ME HORNY: Feminist Publishing and Masturbatory Reading
And much more to come…
RECORDING
A recording of the lecture will be sent out by The Feminist Lecture Program after the event finishes, within 2 hours of the end of the class. This email will also contain any resources/reading list the lecturer shares.
Please add hello@feministlectureprogram.com to your email contacts to ensure you receive the recording as expected.
Please note that the recording will expire 7 days after sending.
PAY WHAT YOU CAN
Everyone is welcome to join this Pay-What-You-Can class. We suggest a donation of £20, however, we understand that may not be possible for everybody. Please be honest and pay what you can afford so that we can continue to offer our sessions on a donation basis.
MORE FLP…
Can’t get enough? The Feminist Lecture Program has our very own digital archive, where you can find some of the best past lectures from our back catalogue to rent and watch ON DEMAND. Check out our ever growing collection here: https://thefeministlectureprogram.vhx.tv/
Follow us on Instagram @thefeministlectureprogram
And check out our sustainable merch from FLP Studio at https://feministlectureprogram.com/shop & @flp__studio
And that's it!
We're really looking forward to you joining us.