Solidarity-in-Difference: Feminist Collective Practices

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Reckitt, Helena and Martinis Roe, Alex. 2024. 'Solidarity-in-Difference: Feminist Collective Practices'. In: Solidarity-in-Difference: Feminist Collective Practices, as part of PLATFORM's training programme for young cultural managers and curators. PLATFORM, Münchner Arbeit gGmbH, Munich, Germany 14 November 2024. [Conference or Workshop Item]

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Abstract or Description

In this online talk, Helena Reckitt talks to artist Alex Martinis Roe about feminist collective practices for artistic and other collaborations. The question of how we can relate to one another, where the starting point is difference and not sameness, is central Martinis Roe’s theory and practice. Across research-based artworks including To Become Two (2014-2018), Alliances, (2018 - ongoing) and Storytelling Liberation (2023- ongoing), she challenges the traditional solo artist model through feminist approaches to subjectivity, foregrounding how relationships constitute selfhood. Martinis Roe envisions the artist as a connector among diverse experiences and communities, creating a social network that promotes dialogue among “influences,” “artists,” and “audiences,” recognizing their participation in the artistic process and the creation of culture.

In conversation with Reckitt, Martinis Roe discusses her current film project Storytelling Liberation, which she envisages as an accessible means of narrating feminist and decolonial histories. She explains how the process of learning from and creating relationships with her film subjects holds just as much value to the artist as does the final artwork. By seeking to inhabit her film subjects’ particular methodologies, she aims to create alliances in which both parties become political partners.

Discussion focuses on the importance of devoting resources, including time, energy, and budget, for unplanned aspects of co-authorship. Following her experience of not anticipating the needs of some of her collaborators for one ambitious projects, Martinis Roe now aims to devote 15% of a project's resources to unplanned activities. Reckitt shared her experience of seeking to balance the wellbeing of feminist groups she is a part alongside the needs and demands of external institutions.

Both speakers talked about some of the methodologies they developed that support learning from others whose experiences and genealogies differ from their own. They shared their experiences dealing with the uncomfortable but currently necessary task of acknowledging their whiteness and privileged positionality, and how this has contributed to their desire to sit back and be of service.

Martinis Roe cited writer and scholar Saidiya Hartman’s work on the need to acknowledge histories of white supremacy, together with her project of critical fabulation which decodes and reroutes dominant archives, as a key inspiration for her own practice. Martinis Roe also reflected on the importane to her practice of Hannah Arendt's distinction between authority versus authoritarianism, which acknowledges difference and values people’s different desires and competences.

Referencing the Italian feminist practice of ‘affidamento,’ or entrustment, which builds on Arendt's work, Martinis Roe and Reckitt discussed how to enable dissenting and conflicting views and desires to be expressed amongst members of feminist groups. In response to an audience question from Gabrielle Moser about censorship and self-censorship in feminist collectives, they shared thoughts on how to make visible the competing opinions held by group members, while also acknowledging the difficulty of doing so.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Talk)