If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your
Revolution with Archive Books, Berlin; ar/ge kunst, Bolzano; Casco – Office for
Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht; and The Showroom, London is pleased to
announce the publication of an artist book by Alex Martinis Roe to accompany
her commissioned project, To Become Two.
The book, To
Become Two: Propositions for Feminist Collective Practice, offers a
narrative of artist Alex Martinis Roe’s research into a genealogy of feminist
political practices in Europe and Australia from the 1970s until today. These
practices include those of the Milan Women’s Bookstore co-operative;
Psychanalyse et Politique, Paris; Gender Studies (formerly Women’s Studies) at
Utrecht University; a network in Sydney including people involved in the Sydney
Filmmakers Co-operative, Feminist Film Workers, Working Papers Collective, and
the Department of General Philosophy at Sydney University; and Duoda – Women’s
Research Centre and Ca la Dona, a women’s documentation centre and encounter
space in Barcelona. Drawing from their practices and experiences, Martinis
Roe’s research forms a proposal for a transgenerational approach to feminist
politics. This is further developed as a handbook of twenty new propositions
for feminist collective practice, which were formed in collaboration with a
network of contributors through experiments with these historical practices.
To launch the book in the Netherlands, an event
will be held at Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht. The event
will include a rescreening of Martinis Roe’s film Their desire rang through the halls and into the tower (2016),
which highlights five key practices developed within the Gender Studies program
at Utrecht University: the practice/theory of the double-track approach to
institutional politics; international networking; pluralism; affirmative
critique; and transdisciplinarity. The screening will be followed by a
conversation between Alex Martinis Roe, Casco curator Staci Bu Shea, and If I
Can’t Dance curator and co-editor of the book, Susan Gibb. They will present
the book as a summation of Martinis Roe’s artistic research and reflect upon
the project’s iterative journey.
The book will be available for the special
launch price of €12,– on the night.
To Become Two is co-commissioned by
ar/ge kunst, Bolzano; Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht; If I
Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam and The
Showroom, London. The accompanying workshops and performances are
co-commissioned by the Keir Foundation. The accompanying book is co-published
with Archive Books, Berlin. The project was produced with the support of the
Graduiertenschule der Universität der Künste Berlin and the Australian
Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, and its arts funding and
advisory body. The book launch is supported by the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University.
