The Feminist Lecture Program is excited to announce their Summer term of amazing online weekly feminist lectures!
Join FLP guest lecturer Joanna Sperryn-Jones, Assistant Professor in Fine Art, to find out how breaking, violence and destruction are used by women artists who utilise it to explore and investigate the power dynamics of breaking in society and the wider cultural context.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
‘People find it quite weird that women make violent work, or work that uses violence. But we have as much right to it as anyone else.’ - Cornelia Parker
From Doris Salcedo to Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramović to Camille Claudel, there is a wealth of women artists working across sculpture, performance, film and participative artworks that have employed breaking, destruction or violence in their work. How is it that violence became so prolific in female creative practice, and what does this say about the wider cultural context that these women artists were making in?
During this lecture, specific artworks will be used to consider nuances as the artist takes on the position of ‘breaker’ or are the subject of breaking. We will question how and what is broken, what is doing the breaking, the approach to breaking and how the reactions to the breaking can alter power dynamics in the artwork. Of particular focus is violence, or breaking, as means to escape gendered constraints:
Louise Bourgeois filmed herself pushing her stone sculpture off its plinth, destroying it in the process. In contrast, in ‘Rhythm 0’ (1974) Marina Abramović literally risks self-annihilation as she opens to the uncertainty of others’ actions. In ‘Be the first to see what you see as you see it’ (2004), Runa Islam calmly and deliberately breaks a china tea service, visually relishing breaking. In ‘Here comes Santa’ (2003) Sylvie Fleury films a woman in high heels enjoying a process of stamping on silver baubles, very different to Islam’s calm approach.
As Gustav Metzger proposes, ‘Auto-destructive art seeks to be an instrument for transforming peoples’ thought and feelings, not only about art, but wants to use art to change people’s relations to themselves and society’.
This lecture will explore the power dynamics throughout these artworks with the aim of both revealing how breaking, violence and destruction operate in society and how women artists can best utilise these in their artwork for empowerment.
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
Dr Joanna Sperryn-Jones is Assistant Professor in Fine Art at Coventry University, working as a lecturer on the BA Fine Art course and a researcher in the Centre for Art, Memory and Communities (CAMC). She completed her PhD in Sculpture, entitled, Breaking as Making, at Norwich University of the Arts and University of the Arts London in 2013. She has published several book chapters and expositions on gender, breaking and destruction. This includes the Introduction to 50 Women Sculptors (2020), an exposition for VIS journal (2019), and chapters for the following books; Art and Destruction (Walden, 2013), Artistic Research: Strategies for Embodiment (Mc Guirk & Fentz 2015) and The Art of Research II (Makela & O’Riley 2012). In 2014 Joanna initiated and managed the project This Woman’s Work, a London-wide project encouraging debate on women’s positions as artists as well as their representation in artwork funded by the Royal Female School of Art. In addition to researching philosophy and artwork in developing understanding of breaking and destruction, Joanna is an artist whose own sculptural participative works have explored these themes for the last 15 years. In 2023 she had a solo exhibition, Dust, at Platform A Gallery, Middlesbrough.
INSTAGRAM: @josperrynjones
WEBSITE: www.joannasperrynjones.carbonmade.com/
UPCOMING SESSIONS WITH THE FEMINIST LECTURE PROGRAM
Monday 20th May
Lucy Brownson (she/her) and Matilde Manicardi (she/her)
Building It Ourselves, Building It Together: A History of Queer and Feminist Community-Building Through Housing Activism
Monday 27th Mat
Jasmine Reimer (she/her)
Feminist Monsters: Transformation and the New Weird Divine
Monday 3rd June
Nicola Hill (she/her)
Visions, Veils And Virgins: A Short History of Epilepsy Through the Lives of Extraordinary Women
Monday 10th June
Kate Robinson (she/her)
An Introduction to Textiles as a Feminist Discourse
Monday 17th June
Joanna Sperryn-Jones (she/her)
Breaking As Making: Women Artists Employing Breaking, Violence and Destruction
Monday 24th June
Hettie Judah (she/her)
On Art And Motherhood: The Construction of Perfection and its Feminist Subversion
Monday 1st July
Luisa-Maria MacCormack (she/her)
Ana Mendieta: Soil, Dirt and the Body as Art
Monday 8th July
Janine Francois (she/her/they/them)
Oppositional Gaze: Black Feminist Photography as Feminist Resistance
Stay tuned in to be the first to hear about our Autumn term!
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 x