Taking its cue from Catharine Mackinnon’s essay Women’s states, Men’s Status – An Introduction to her book “Are women Human, and other international dialogues” this symposium seeks to address the treatment, and discussions, of the female within the UK.

“The public is formally supreme over the private, the private a space inside which power is left alone by public authorities. Women have historically been relegated to and identified with the private, excluded from and, when present, subordinated in public”.*

While recognizing that gender identification is not sex specific this events hopes to explore the psychological aspects of subjugation, the public versus the private through the perspective of psychoanalysis, and the social reverberations within communities, looking at how artists explore and experience these domains, where status and entitlement are key.

The question is, with men battling other men for control of states and the women encompassed within them, does this male dominance over public space pertain to the space of the gallery?  

When artists operate within this sphere of the public, questions of entitlement arise. In this context is women's work seen as marginal, and not fit for public consumption? Is female art and language only integrated into our culture, while male art and language is assimilated into our culture? If the female is still relegated to the private, does this deny women and men their female voice? 

At this symposium we will have a range of speakers who have access to what is often left unheard.

With an introduction by artist, Rose Gibbs speakers will offer insights into the realities of domestic violence and domestic servitude as witnessed by professionals who work with the victims, as well as artists and curators who explore this area.

*Mackinnon, C. "Are Women Human and Other international dialogues?" ISBN 0-674-02187-8 Page 4

Emily-Anna Gibbs is an immigration and employment lawyer, and co-founder of ATLU – An Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit. Emily-Anna qualified as a solicitor at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in 2006, having obtained a first in Modern History at Oxford University.  She worked in Freshfields' employment department between 2006 and 2008, before leaving to work in the voluntary sector.  Emily-Anna worked in the employment and immigration units at North Kensington Law Centre between 2008 and 2012, where she continued her mainstream practice whilst developing a particular expertise acting for victims of trafficking and severe labour exploitation.  She has represented clients in the employment and immigration fields in tribunals, Employment Appeal Tribunal, Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), the County Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights.  Emily-Anna has a particular interest in seeking compensation for employees of diplomats and states.  She has successfully obtained compensation for clients in cases where state immunity is claimed and continues to act for clients in test cases challenging state and diplomatic immunity in relation to the employment contract.

Ratna Lachman started her career as a current affairs broadcaster and free-lance literary journalist in Singapore.She came to the UK in 1990 to pursue a Masters degree in feminist studies at the University of Kent and went on to work with Yorkshire Arts and the Watermans Arts Centre in London. After a 6-month stint as a script editor at China Central Television she returned to England and joined The Monitoring Group, a national organisation supporting victims of racial harassment and discrimination. She set up the Rural Racism Project, South West, an organisation that was at the forefront of challenging rural racism and challenging institutional and racial barriers facing BME communities. She was also instrumental in setting up Refugee First, the BME Coalition of Plymouth and the Anti-Racism Taskforce. Ratna was appointed as the Director of JUST West Yorkshire in 2008 and under her stewardship the organisation has become a leading regional and national voice on racial justice, civil liberties and human rights. In addition to her professional role, she chairs the Racial Justice in North Yorkshire project and is an activist

CUNTemporary is a curatorial collective that provides listings of exhibitions, talks and events in London at the intersection of Visual Arts, Feminism and Queer. CUNTemporary brings together a multidisciplinary group of members to curate exhibitions, host screenings and organize discussions and artist talks. They organize collaboratively, organically, rhizomatically with like-minded people.

BODIES OF SILENCE is a special project curated in support of ONE BILLION RISING London Art Festival, which includes international artists Regina José Galindo (Guatemala), Sukran Moral (Turkey) and Pilar Albarracín (Spain). Some of the emerging artists selected have been the result of an open call for work that stresses the ethical and political implications of silence as a by-product of traumatic crime. We have selected artwork that is explicit in its political activism as much as we were interested in portraying more open-ended representations of bodies that communicate silence, trauma, politics and ethics.

For this second event, CUNTemporary co-directors and curators Giulia Casalini and Diana Georgiou will open up a discussion on violence, social justice and art activism with a presentation of video work by artists Sukran Moral (Zina, 2007) and Regina José Galindo (Marabunta, 2011). Artist Sukran Moral will be present for the final panel discussion.

Catherine Long is a PhD researcher and artist at Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London supported by an Arts and Humanities Doctoral Studentship. Her research topic isA Feminist Dialogue with the Camera; progressing strategies to counter objectification and negative representation through the moving image. Catherine’s research is a practice-based enquiry investigating the current socio-political, economic and cultural context effecting women today.  Her focus is on how they are represented through imagery, both in popular culture and in art.  Her video work revisits issues of representation first developed in the 1970s, and examines the construction of femininity in a contemporary context.

Tuesday 12th of Feb 2013
4.00pm-8.00pm
The Royal College of Art
Sculpture department, seminar room
15-25 Howie Street
Battersea, London, SW11 4AS