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Speculative Curatorial Project (2024-2025)[SEM2]

#002 Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990

In order to understand contemporary curating within the context of a major exhibition, I visited Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990 at Modern Two in Edinburgh. Touring from Tate Britain, I was lucky enough to have prior knowledge of this exhibition after attending a lecture from the lead curator Lindsey Young who took us through room by room not only the content but also the refinements and curatorial decisions that created the narrative of the exhibition. With the necessity of feminism established, the exhibition follows a chronological hanging with the works placed ‘as the female conversation flows’. The male gaze is not of consideration here, with the celebration of female community reflected in the constellation of credited feminist works. 

What interested me the most was the inclusion of postal art. Tactile and accessible, these works show the engagement of a network of conversations between women, all with the same collective consciousness of a need to make. The curation of this in the exhibition actually differed between the London and Edinburgh stagings, Young explained, with Edinburgh holding a greater volume of the works and making use of the pre-build archival cabinets situated in the rooms. The viewer observes the work as artefacts, acknowledging them as significant items instead of witnessing them as just something made. This firstly made me much more aware of the medium of conversation that is postal art, which I think should definitely have a revival, but also how you can focus the significance of an item within the gallery space. Furthermore, without discussing the work with the curator I feel like I might have overlooked that decision. The key moments for the exhibition for me have come from the idea of conversation and narrative, both through the supplementary talk and the framing of artworks. 

 

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/women-in-revolt

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/nov/12/women-in-revolt-art-and-activism-in-the-uk-1970-1990-tate-britain-london-review-a-monumental-social-history

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhibition/women-revolt-art-and-activism-uk-1970-1990

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#002 Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990 / 'Stick With It' - Sarah Percival by is licensed under a
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