2020: A Year in Review
What end of year – even a year as (frankly) crappy as 2020 – is complete without a countdown?! And while it has been a tough year, there are things worth celebrating. With that in mind, here is She Performs’ 2020 Top Ten.
10. Open call for She Performs: The Body
We were delighted with the response to our first open call, and our jury – artists Madelynn Green and Bethany Marett, Royal Academy Assistant Curator Rhiannon Hope, and She Performs’ Holly Daizy Broughton – had a strong shortlist of artists to choose from. Performance artist Naomi Morris was the eventual winner with her video installation, Revealed/Concealed (2017). Additionally, we were pleased to be able to feature work from other shortlisted artists Anne Griffiths and Fleur Simon in the exhibition.
Read Naomi’s recent Artist Spotlight here.
9. She Performs: The Body
She Performs: The Body was our second exhibition, and the latest in an ongoing investigation into the issues of inclusive feminist curating and the under-representation of women artists. Through the exhibition we explored how the body - artist’s, female, human - is a site of both conflict and harmony. By showing women artists articulating women’s bodies we were able to present an alternative narrative to that typically provided.
Writing in the exhibition catalogue, curators Holly Daizy Broughton and Lynn Seraina Battaglia said:
The seven amazing artists in this exhibition, as well as those who contributed to this publication, are powerful and expressive in their artistic work, and their lives. They present paintings, videos, performances, and written works focusing on the corporeal in particular, examining how the body can be a locus; often a tool, an object, a vehicle; sometimes a disappointment, but always a triumph.
She Performs: The Body (20 February – 8 March 2020, The Glass Tank, Oxford) was made possible by the generous support of The Glass Tank, Oxford Brookes University, the National Lottery Community Fund and Oxford City Council’s Culture Fund.
8. We Perform
All of She Performs’ exhibitions are accompanied by a participatory events programme (hence ‘we perform’) to maximise the opportunity for artists and audiences to come together, empowering them to engage with and exchange ideas, and She Performs: The Body was no exception.
Following a well-attended Private View, other events included Curators in Conversation (Lynn and Holly discussing their curatorial approach with the evening’s audience); a one-off performance by Naomi Morris of another of her works in the gallery space; a special edition of She Hears, our storytelling event, which took ‘The Body’ as its theme; and She Speaks, a panel-led round table discussion exploring the exhibition’s themes.
An interpretation space within the gallery provided a further opportunity for audiences to join the conversation by sharing their thoughts and ideas.
7. International Women’s Day March
As part of our commitment to providing opportunities for young people to engage in cultural planning and programme delivery, we invited students from Oxford Brookes University’s School of Arts to work with us to design and deliver an event to celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March 2020 (which serendipitously fell on the last day of the exhibition). A group of four students came up with the idea of organising a women’s march on the University’s Headington campus to raise awareness of the lack of gender equality in the art world. The event, called To be fair, began at the gallery space with a placard-making session and after the march the placards were displayed at The Glass Tank alongside the exhibition.
6. Bringing She Performs to new audiences
She Performs: The Body also gave us the opportunity to work with young people who don’t readily access contemporary art. SP’s Curator of Interpretation, Nicola Waterman worked with a group of students from Oxford’s EMBS Community College, running a session at their Wednesday afternoon art club to encourage the students to really look at and question some of the works included in the exhibition. Nicola took the students’ questions away with her and used them as the basis for an interview with one of the participating artists, Anne Griffiths. We also used the students’ questions as a means of inviting visitors’ questions about the exhibition by installing a wall text entitled, ‘What is going on?!’ (a question asked by ‘T’, one of the students, in reference to Bex Massey’s work, ‘Indira’) in the interpretation space.
A second session was run for the students at the gallery after the exhibition opened, providing them with an opportunity to view the works ‘in the flesh’ and see how Anne had responded to their questions, and what questions their ‘What is going on?!’ had provoked other visitors to ask. Very generously, Anne had given us permission to allow the students to handle her work, Kintsugi Egg (2017), about which the students had been so curious. The session at The Glass Tank concluded with a making session led by She Performs’ Holly Broughton, who encouraged the students to create works of their own in response to the exhibition.
5. SHEPERFORMS.COM 2.0
For She Performs, lockdown was a period of reflection: both on what we do and how we do it. Recognising that it was likely to be some time before we would be in a position to welcome our community into a gallery space again, we decided to focus our efforts on the She Performs website - reformatting it to become a virtual platform for female artists and their audiences to connect. The focus is on content that gives insights into the artists’ work and oeuvres. And most importantly, gives artists the chance to have their own (unedited) voice heard, next to more curated content as well.
4. COVID shorts
The rebooted website saw the introduction of two new features, the first of which we sincerely hope will be only temporary: our COVID shorts series. We’ve always been interested in hearing from artists directly, but thought it was particularly crucial to provide them with a platform during the pandemic. We all understand what it means for someone working in an office to start working from home, but what does it mean for an artist? And perhaps even more importantly, what does it mean for their practice? Has COVID-19 changed more than just where they work - has it changed the very nature of their work?
Watch our COVID shorts here.
3. Artists to Watch (a2w)
The second of our new features is destined to be a regular one. Each month we invite a member of the She Performs community to share their Artists to Watch - or a2w, as we’ve come to call it - a personal selection of no more than three artists whose work has caught their attention.
If you’ve missed any of them, you can find all of our a2w here, and be sure not to miss January’s selection by Mexico-based UK artist, Anna Garrett ...
2. SP Global
2020 was the year SP went global!
We were delighted to welcome Yael Zhang and Caroline Block as SP Global correspondents, bringing us art news and reviews from Shanghai and New York respectively (check out their latest pieces here).
And we’re not stopping there – 2021 will see us expand SP Global and introduce some exciting new voices …
1. 2021 …
Just like everyone else, we hope to soon find a new normality together. Meanwhile we will continue to provide this platform for female artists. Here’s a sneak peak of what’s to come:
Our NYC-correspondent Caroline Blockus will review the New Museum’s Rachel Feinstein exhibition, as well as teach us more about the art of Tschabalala Self (on the occasion of her latest exhibition with Eva Pressenhuber).
From Shanghai, we are getting an exciting feature on the exhibition series More, More, More at the TANK from our Shanghai-correspondent Yael Zhang.
Added to which, we are already working on an amazing interview with MyLoan Dinh, and Sarah Faux will be telling us what’s on her mind in an Artist Spotlight.
Of course, our number one goal for 2021 is to bring you more new features and develop new collaborations, so that we can continue to provide a nurturing platform for female (identifying) artists and their audiences around the world.
If you would like to get in touch with us, send us an email to contact@sheperforms.com.
Acknowledgements
She Performs’ achievements this year would not have been possible with the support of a great many people, so we’d like to take this opportunity to thank everybody involved in She Performs: The Body and all of our website contributors:
Ala Jazayeri
Ania Ready
Anne Griffiths
Asmaa Hashmi
Bethany Marett
Bex Massey
Cabanca Lea
Camilla Hanney
Caroline Blockus
Catalina Renjifo
Chloe Allwright
Clare Price
Daniela Müller
Ellen Ormerod
Emily Moore
Eve Arengo-Jones
Fleur Simon
Gal Leshem
Ingrid Berthon-Moine
Jemima Hall
Jessie J’ng
Johanna Huyg and the students at EMBS Community College, Oxford
John Umney
Lhunahā Dedenise
Lydia Figes
Madeline Ehrlich
Madelynn Mae Green
Marcela Florido
Maria Fragoso
Maria Kassab
Marita Fraser
Naomi Morris
Nour Jaouda
Rhiannon Hope
Rima Najdi
San Mei Gallery, London
Sarah Alice Moran
Shannon Bono
Yael Zhang
Zohar Freiman
We would also like to thank The Glass Tank, Oxford Brooks University, Oxford City Council and the National Lottery Community Fund for their generous material support.
And finally, thank YOU – our audience – for your support. We wish you all a very happy new year and look forward to seeing you again in 2021.
