Being, Making, Becoming: understanding women’s art archives as sites of activation
- 3 November 2022, 2pm
This blog post presents a summary of content produced as part of the Art360 Foundation Programme (2014 to 2025). It is shared here with the intention of preserving and extending access to the important learnings from this programme of work.
‘Being, Making, Becoming’ celebrated two long-running feminist artist communities and archives projects: The Women's Art Library in London and Women's Studio Workshop in New York. It was live-streamed on 3 November, 2022 from the Flat Time House in South London. This event was part of the Expanded Archive Network series, a collaboration between Art360 Foundation in the UK and Hauser & Wirth Institute in the US.
Live conversations focused on themes of intergenerational dialogue, collectivity, sanctuary and the unique position of these radical spaces that exist within or outside of “institutions”, and highlighted the wider communities, art practices and relationships that are activated in creation of and response to the archives.
The film ‘Yes to the Work! The Women’s Art Library’, by Holly Antrum, an artist and researcher, was released at the event. Film participants Chloe Turner and Lauren Craig talked about engaging with the Women’s Art Library. Presented by Library curator Dr Althea Greenan, the film features some of the many women who have engaged with the WAL across generations.
The Expanded Archives Network connected freelance and institution-based archivists, curators and other memory workers through a shared interest in artists’ archives and futures. It sought to foster a cross-cultural network for resource sharing and innovation in the expanded field of artists’ archives.
