Feminist Intervention

I went to a public lecture at Schermerhorn Hall last night on Morningside Campus which is the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. There were two presentations. The first one was by Eleni Varikas called "The Secret Life of Concepts:Gender Experience, Disidentification, Self-definition." and the other was by Renee' C. Hoogland called "Affective Un/Doing: Bodies, Art, and De/Constructions of Gender."

I found the second paper really interesting as Renee' talked about how certain intense aesthetic experiences can transform lives. Her examples came from literature. Although she couldn't say how this happened. After the lecture there was a discussion on which book/art works had that effect on individuals. The convenor of the session said Judy Chicago's book Through the Flower and I said Simone DeBouvoir's Autobiography of a Duitiful Daughter.

I have since been thinking about what painting did that for me - although not in such a life changing way but certainly in a way that triggered a recognition in me which no other art works have done before - was a painting by Rebecca Fortnum called Traverse. She is a British painter who came to prominance during the 1990's and I saw her work at the Norwich Gallery in a show called Somatic States.