New exhibition cites Dundee’s ‘She Town’ as an influence

Published On Tue 18 Oct 2016 by Grant Hill

The University of Dundee will this month play host to the first instalment of a two-chapter exhibition and event programme that takes feminism as its starting point.

Of Other Spaces: Where Does Gesture Become Event? takes place at the University’s Cooper Gallery and off-site venues in Dundee and features work by seminal artists from the past four decades. Chapter One opens with a preview evening on Thursday, 27th October and runs until mid-December. Chapter Two will take place between January and March next year.

Referencing art works, artist collaborative groups and activism from the 1970s to the present day, Of Other Spaces evokes the collaborative and political ethos of feminism as a way of exploring self-organisation and alternative politics in culture, society and everyday life.

Curator Sophia Hao said, “Inherently radical, dissonant and often luxuriantly subversive, the artists, writers and thinkers featured situate feminist thinking as a provocative and cogent mode of creative and critical inquiry.

“The exhibition is informed by the proud history of a strong working women’s culture in Dundee’s jute mills of the early 20th century, which led to the nickname of ‘She Town’ for Dundee. The programme also includes a range of other events that will examine the insights of feminism as one of the most volatile and motivated political movements that critiques cultural, political and economic iterations of power.”

Of Other Spaces presents work by significant national and international artists from different generations – Conrad Atkinson, Rose English, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Margaret Harrison, Susan Hiller, Alexis Hunter, Mary Kelly, Lucy McKenzie, Annabel Nicolson, Siôn Parkinson, Cullinan Richards, Su Richardson, Monica Ross and Jo Spence.

In November the events programme includes a collaborative participatory dance project We Dance Ourselves in response to the influential feminist dance piece Rosas danst Rosas by Anne Theresa De Keersmaeker.

Alongside the exhibition at the Cooper Gallery, Chapter One features an international symposium, entitled the 12-Hour Action Group. Taking place on Saturday, 3^rd December, the event includes performances, readings and screenings as well as contributions from esteemed art historians such as Amelia Jones, influential film theorist like Laura Mulvey, curators, writers and critics.

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Grant Hill
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University of Dundee
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Email: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk