Feminism in the Archives and the Archive in Feminism: Propositions Gleaned from Alex Martinis Roe’s To Become Two

Amelia Wallin

Abstract


In this paper I propose that the current archival paradigm must attend equally to the materiality of archives, and the material conditions of their production and preservation, as evidenced through the archival strategies at play in the artwork of Alex Martinis Roe. For Martinis Roe, the return to the archive is a feminist strategy of care. She works directly with the minor histories of feminism, mining archives and other textual sources to recreate historical affinities and glean strategies of collectivity, collaboration, and mobilization. In writing this paper I draw on queer phenomenology and feminist materialism to excavate the works of Martinis Roe while also drawing in disparate threads of archival theory to consider the inherent paradoxes of the archive. The logic of the archive determines a reliance on the materials of daily life which themselves defy hierarchical classification systems. At the same time, the material conditions that produce and determine what enters the archive are only recently beginning to be reflected in archival practices. The (re)turn to the archive is made richer through access to the subjectivity of the author and archivist, the processes and care taken in the archives’ assembly and preservation. 

Keywords


performance; gallery; archive; feminism; maintenance art; Alex Martinis Roe

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press.

———. 2014. “Selfcare as Warfare.” Feminist Killjoys, August 25, 2014. https://feministkilljoys.com/2014/08/25/selfcare-as-warfare/

AQNB. 2017. “‘Solidarity-In-Difference’ and the Politics of Transgenerational Feminism: A Conversation with Alex Martinis Roe.”

AQNB, May 8, 2017. http://www.aqnb.com/2017/05/08/solidarity-in-difference-and-the-politics-of-transgenerational-feminism-a-conversation-with-alex-martinis-roe/

Bacon, Julie Louise. 2013. “Unstable Archives: Languages and Myths of the Visible.” In Performing Archives/Archives of Performance, edited by Gunhild Borggen and Rune Gade, 73–93. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.

Bell, Andrea. 2012. “Alex Martinis Roe’s non-writing histories.” Column 10, edited by Blair French and Mark Freary, 87–91. Sydney: Artspace. http://files.cargocollective.com/562322/alex-artspace-cat.pdf

Cook, Terry, and Joan M. Schwartz. 2002. “Archives, Records, and Power: From (Postmodern) Theory to (Archival) Performance.” Archival Science 2 (1): 171–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435628

Derrida, Jacques. 1996. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, translated by Eric Prenowitz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Eichhorn, Kate. 2013. The Archival Turn in Feminism: Outrage and Order. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Federici, Silvia. 1975. Wages Against Housework. Bristol: Power of Women Collective and Falling Wall Press.

Foster, Hal. 2004. “An Archival Impulse.” October 110: 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1162/0162287042379847

Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books.

———. 1979. “The Life of Infamous Men.” In Power, Truth, Strategy. Edited by Meaghan Morris and Paul Patton, 76–91. Sydney: Feral Press.

———. 1980. “The Confession of the Flesh.” In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, edited by Colin Gordon, translated by Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham, and Kate Soper, 194–228. New York: Pantheon Books.

Hart, Tara. 2015. “How Do You Archive the Sky?” Archive 5 November, http://www.archivejournal.net/essays/how-do-you-archive-the-sky/

Irigaray, Luce. 1985. This Sex Which is Not One, translated by Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Martinis Roe, Alex. 2017a. “To Become Two.” Alex Martinis Roe, http://www.alexmartinisroe.com/To-Become-Two

———. 2017b. ‘“To Become Two” at ar/ge kunst’, Mousse Magazine, http://moussemagazine.it/alex-martinis-roe-become-two-arge-kunst/

Meyer, Madonna Harrington, ed. 2000. Care Work: Gender, Class and the Welfare State. New York: Routledge.

Mies, Maria. 1986. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. London: Zed Books.

Misra, Joya. 2007. “Carework.” Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Edited by George Ritzer. New York: Blackwell. www.sociologyencyclopedia.com/public/

Phillips, Patricia, with Tom Finkelpearl, Larissa Harris, and Lucy R. Lippard. 2016. Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art. New York: Prestel.

Schneider, Rebecca. 2011. Performing Remains: Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment. London: Routledge.

Steedman, Carolyn. 2001. “Something She Called a Fever: Michelet, Derrida, and Dust.” American Historical Review 106 (4): 1159–180. https://doi.org/10.2307/2692943

Williams, Raymond. 1976. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press.

Woolf, Virginia. 1956. Hours in a Library. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.