Seminar on Art, Feminism and Emancipation

Contemporary feminism promotes a transgender and intersexual agenda that debates the simultaneous nature of social oppressions: sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and classism. Does the term feminism mean the same today as it did in the 1960s and 1970s? Can we refer to a new wave of feminism, following post-feminism? What is the relationship between these debates and the field of art? How do contemporary artists position themselves in relation to feminist agendas? These questions are central to contemporary Brazilian culture.

Art histories have been written based on exclusive criteria that have rendered artists invisible for reasons of gender and race. This seminar proposes the activation of a space for knowledge on urgent agendas surrounding the feminine, queer , trans, non-normative, and intersex genders. It aims to expand fields of knowledge that intersect poetics, image activism, and the body. If feminism is a way of understanding the world, a non-exclusive field of knowledge that involves us all, it is essential to expand the processes of transformation in which we are immersed. The sessions of this meeting are conceived as the unfolding of an agenda of topics discussed in the fields of art, culture, and law.

First session 10:30 am - 12:30 pm Knowledge policies

The seminar begins by addressing legal discourse, trans activism, and the history of art written in the first person to analyze the place of women and femininity in society and culture.

Seminar Presentation:

Andrea Giunta

Curator of Bienal 12, professor and researcher, University of Buenos Aires / CONICET

María Berenice Días

President of the Sexual Diversity Committee of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB). Vice-President of the Brazilian Institute of Family Law (IBDFAM).

Gloria Crystal

Artist, she was deputy secretary of Free Sexual Orientation in Porto Alegre, being the first representative of the LGBT community to occupy a position like this in the country.

Roberta Barros

Artist and researcher, author of In Praise of Touch or How to Talk About Feminist Art in Brazil (2016)

Coordination: Andrea Giunta

Second session 1:30–3:00 p.m. Poetics of the body. Art, activism, and performance

This session deals with body politics, forms of artistic activism, and the relationship between feminism and performance.

Alice Porto

Artist and activist. Vagabonds' March, Graphic Parade, and Zines

Julha Franz

Sensory artist. Artistic director of drag queens at the Workroom bar in Porto Alegre.

Claudia Paim

Visual artist

Coordination: Carmen Lucía Capra

Professor and Coordinator of the Visual Arts Undergraduate Program at the Rio Grande do Sul State University – UERGS. Leader of the Flume Education and Visual Arts Research Group (CNPq/UERGS)

Third session 3:30-5:00 pm Reconfiguring the concept of Art

The history of Brazilian art, and art history in general, was written based on exclusive criteria that rendered female artists invisible due to gender and race. Are these criteria changing?

Rosana Paulino

Artist, teacher and independent researcher

Coordination: Andrea Giunta and

Igor Simões

PhD student in Visual Arts - History, Theory and Criticism of Art at UFRGS, assistant professor at Uergs and curator

Performances by Claudia Paim and Julha Franz 5pm

*Roberta Barros will sign her book In Praise of Touch or How to Talk About Feminist Art in Brazil (2016) at 6:30 pm, at the Autograph Square.

*Entry will be on a first come, first served basis.

Produced by: Mercosul Biennial Foundation 64th Book Fair

Sponsorship: CMPC Celulose Riograndense