And others: the gendered practices and politics of art collectives - writing and thinking together about affective labour and collectivity

Abstract

Who does what type of work in collective art-making? Who is seen and who remains invisible? Who tells the story and whose names enter histories? These are questions derived from our seven months’ reflections in a series of group authored documents, and four panel discussions, held as part of Lina Dzuvereovic’s research project And Others: The Gendered Politics and Practices of Art Collectives. Current enthusiasm towards collectivity across the artworld, harbours a certain romanticisation of collectives. This simplification suggests that collective work – be it artistic, curatorial or organizational – is somehow automatically emancipatory and egalitarian, by its nature preserving the promise of equality and inclusivity. However, the reality of working collectively is filled with challenges and inequalities, and those working in this way are no less vulnerable to exploitation than individual cultural workers. This is the first of a three-part workshop (Lisbon, Warsaw, Riga) that focus on a series of exercises in historicizing collective artistic work. The Lisbon workshop focuses on recognizing and transforming visual patterns and we will work with a selection of existing images of artistic collectives, analyze them together with the participants and develop new possibilities and performative paths of collective visibility. The workshop will invite participants to talk, write, draw, perform and think together, as a way of creating a dossier of experiences which will help us understand the wide range of exclusions, omissions and othering involved in historization of collaborative and collective work. Our quest will be centred on exploring and inspiring others to think through the question: Can we imagine collective structures in art, which do not exclude, belittle or ignore affective and reproductive labour? The workshop will be led by several art workers from the And Others network.