Martinis Roe, Alex and Reckitt, Helena. 2017. 'To Become Two: Alex Martinis Roe in conversation with Helena Reckitt'. In: Alex Martinis Roe in conversation with Helena Reckitt. The Showroom, London, United Kingdom 18 May 2017. [Conference or Workshop Item]

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Abstract or Description

In tandem with To Become Two, Alex Martinis Roe's exhibition and commission at The Showroom in London, she was joined in conversation by Helena Reckitt.

The discussion explored Martinis Roe's engagement with international feminist communities and their political practices through her research-based art practice. In exploring how Martinis Roe's longterm collaborative artworks aim to make virtual pasts actual, Martinis Roe and Reckitt considered the implications of being a “dutifully undutiful” feminist, who acknowledges earlier feminist efforts without being overly predetermined by them.

Highlighting how Martinis Roe’s artistic medium can be considered that of human networks, the conversation explored how her art makes visible the relational conditions which engender art, theory and political movements.

Martinis Roe discussed her 2016 film Our Future Network, which was part of The Showroom exhibition and which Reckitt herself took part in. Discussing the film's creation of an intergenerational feminist network, they talked about how Martinis Roe worked with collaborators from key sites (Barcelona, Berlin, London and Utrecht) to develop twenty propositions for feminist collective practices which were collectively explored during a three-day feminist gathering in Germany.

Reflecting on Martinis Roe's wider body of work, the conversation touched on her use of the camera to document the discursive and haptic environments in which new feminisms emerge; her adaptation of participant observation techniques, archival research, and oral history interviews. Reflecting on Jo Freeman's comments on the problematic lack of structure in second wave feminist organising, Martinis Roe and Reckitt considered the importance of creating frameworks with which to generate new feminisms. They touched on Adriana Cavarero's account of vocal singularity to consider the role played by reciprocal narration in Martinis Roe's art.

The conversation also considered how Martinis Roe's practice corresponded to - or diverged from - the feminist desire for safe space; Darwin, sexual difference and gender fluidity; genealogies of feminist new materialist thought; and tactics of alliance and solidarity-in-difference.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Talk)
Additional Information:	The conversation is archived here: https://www.mixcloud.com/The_Showroom/2017-05-18_ts_amr_helena-reckittmp3/
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Art
Dates:	Date Event 18 May 2017 Completed 18 May 2017 Accepted
Event Location:	The Showroom, London, United Kingdom
Date range:	18 May 2017
Item ID:	21689
Date Deposited:	03 Oct 2017 12:10
Last Modified:	29 Apr 2020 16:39
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/21689

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