About

The Feminist Duration Reading Group (FDRG) focuses on under-represented feminist texts, movements and struggles from outside the Anglo-American canon. The group has developed a practice of reading out loud, together, one paragraph at a time, with the aim of creating a sense of connection and intimacy during meetings.

The group was established in March 2015 by Helena Reckitt, at Goldsmiths, University of London, to explore texts from the Italian feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Later in 2015 it relocated to SPACE in Hackney, East London where it was hosted by Persilia Caton until April 2019. From June 2019 to February 2020 the group was in residence at the South London Gallery, where it focused on intersectional feminisms in the UK context (a planned year-long programme that was moved online due to COVID-19).

In 2023 we were one of several groups selected for the eighteen month Residents programme at Goldsmiths CCA, London.

From 2023-2024 FDRG partnered with Cell Project Space developing CEED (Central East European and Diaspora) Feminisms, funded by the British Art Network, with Cell Project Space.

FDRG sessions have been organised with Emilia-Amalia at Art Metropole in Toronto; Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof and HFBK Hamburg, Germany; in London with the Advocacy Academy, Artangel, Barbican Art Gallery, Cell Project Space, Chelsea Space, Chisenhale Gallery, the Drawing Room, Flat Time House, Goldsmiths CCA, Mimosa House, Mosaic Rooms, The Showroom, South Kiosk, Studio Voltaire, Tate Modern, in collaboration with AntiUniversity and the Department of Feminist Conversations, and as part of The Table at the Swiss Church. Elsewhere in the UK we have been hosted by Grand Union and Eastside Projects, Birmingham, esea, Manchester, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, and Hypatia Trust, Penzance.  A sister group, NW FDRG, was set up in Liverpool by Kezia Davies in 2019.        

Six members of the FDRG - Giulia Casalini, Diana Georgiou, Laura Guy, Helena Reckitt, Irene Revell, and Amy Tobin - organised the two-week long events programme, ‘Now Can Go,’ focused on legacies of Italian feminism, across the ICA, The Showroom, SPACE, and Raven Row, in December 2015.  

The group usually meets once a month, in art spaces and community venues as well as non-institutional venues such as private homes or gardens.

The FDRG aims to create an inclusive trans-positive space. We welcome feminists of all genders and generations to explore the legacy and resonance of art, thinking and collective practice from earlier periods of feminism, in dialogue with contemporary practices and movements.

Working Group

FDRG sessions are initiated by a Working Group. Current members are Beth Bramich, Sabrina Fuller, Taey Iohe, Helena Reckitt, and Dot Zhihan.

Support Group

FDRG activities are supported by a Support Group comprising former Working Group members Lina Džuverović, Mariana Lemos, Katrin Lock, and Ehryn Torrell.

Other former Working Group members are Giulia Antonioli, Angelica Bollettinari, Lily Evans-Hill, Félicie Kertudo, Ceren Özpinar, Sara Paiola, Justin Seng, and Fiona Townend.

Working with the FDRG: A Note for Institutions

The FDRG is run by members of the voluntary Working and Support Groups. We regularly partner with community and arts organizations to offer free events to the public.

The reading group is our collective practice that we enjoy and like sharing with others. Facilitating sessions does of course involve considerable time and effort. We also have running costs for web hosting and communication, invited speaker fees etc.

We understand financial constraints within the cultural sector, but appreciate any contributions that support our efforts.

The FDRG operates an ‘Honesty Box,’ and asks funded organisations to pay what they can.

For organisations who can access funding, we suggest a fee of £300 - £600 per session, depending on the scope of work entailed.  This roughly follows the a-n artist payment guidelines for 1-1.5 days for an artist with seven years professional experience (the FDRG was set up in 2015).

Collaborators and Partners

FDRG sessions have been led by Adomas Narkevicius, Ximena Alarcón-Díaz, Giulia Antonioli, Diana Baker Smith, Fari Bradley, Beth Bramich, Giulia Casalini, Laura Castagnini, Catherine Cho, Leah Clements, Morgane Conti, Lauren Craig, Cinzia Cremona, Galit Criden, Giulia Damiani, Oana Damir, Kezia Davies, Department of Feminist Conversations, Flora Dunster, Lina Džuverović, Lily Evans-Hall, Lucia Farinati, Lynne Friedli, Sabrina Fuller, Diana Georgiou, Rose Gibbs, Valeria Graziano, Laura Guy, Haley Ha, Nora Heidorn, Minna Henriksson, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, Yurika Imaseki, Taey Iohe, Félicie Kertudo, Alexandra Kokoli, Jessie Krish, Mariana Lemos, Mai Ling, Jet Moon, Gabby Moser, Roisin O’Sullivan, Ceren Özpinar, Frances Painter Fleming, Grace Eunhye Park, Sara Paiola, Raju Rage, Helena Reckitt, Irene Revell, Lidia Salvatori, Elif Sarican, Justin Seng, Something Other, Cecilia Sosa, Amy Tobin, Ehryn Torrell, and Dot Zhihan.

Artists, Writers & Collectives

Sessions have been dedicated to texts and artworks including those by Naadje Al-Aali, Joan Anim-Addo, Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, Gloria Anzaldua, Jenn Ashworth, Margot Badran, Khairani Barokka, Chiai Bonfiglioli, Anne Boyer, Brixton Black Women’s Group, adrienne maree brown, Wilmette Brown, Octavia Butler, Sakine Cansiz, Hazel V Carby, Adriana Cavarero, Teresa Hak Kyung Cha, Anne Anlin Cheng, Catherine Cho, Barbara Christian, Lia Cigarini, Eli Clare, Leah Clements, Lauren Craig, Galit Criden, Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, Maria Puig De La Bellacasa, Leah Clements, Silvia Federici, Leta Hong Fincher, Shulamith Firestone, Lauren Fournier, Ruth Frankenberg, Olivia Guaraldo, Johanna Hedva, bell hooks, Sanja Iveković, Juliet Jacques, Marie Elizabeth Johnson, Jane Jin Kaisen, Jasleen Kaur, AE Kings, Larissa Lai, Teresa de Lauretis, Clarice Lispector, Carla Lonzi, Fereil Ben Mahoud, Alex Martinis Roe, Lea Melandri, Fatema Mernissi, Milan Women’s Bookshop Collective, Trinh T Minh-ha, Adriana Monti, Jet Moon, Antonella Nappi, Astrida Neimanis, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyen, Abdullah Ocalan, Lola Olufemi, Sue O’Sullivan, Tanja Ostojić, Cecilia Palmeiro, Queer Beograd, Darija Radaković, Raju Rage, Claudia Rankine, Tabita Rezaire, Rivolta Femminile, Lucia Egana Rojas, Sasha Roseneil, Gail Rubin, Suzanne Santoro, Selma Selman, Christina Sharpe, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Rhea Storr, Latif Tas, Miriam Ticktin, Tiqqun, Iris Uurto, Nafu Wang, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, Katri Vala, Vron Ware, Wages Due Lesbians, Wages for Housework, Linda Zerilli.

Contact us

If you would like to join the reading group mailing list or propose a focus for a session, or invite us to lead a meeting, please contact: feministduration@gmail.com 

Website Design by Angelica Bollettinari

Nothing Worth Doing is Done Alone: On Friendship and Feminist Organising

Nothing Worth Doing is Done Alone: On Friendship and Feminist Organising

Feminist Duration
2021

This online listening and discussion event marks the launch of ‘Nothing Worth Doing is Done Alone,’ a podcast on friendship and feminist organising. Following an introduction by some of the organisers and contributors we will listen to the 30 minute recording, which creates a polyphonic account of friendship as a political practice through a chorus of voices and citations. We will then discuss the resonances of the podcast in the light of the current crisis of care, togetherness, and isolation, and in relation to legacies of feminist thought and collective action.

Register

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nothing-worth-doing-is-done-alone-on-friendship-and-feminist-organising-tickets-136192893611

Feminist Friendship

Women tend to take special care of their relationships with one another. Yet until the second wave feminist movement of the 1970s few accounts of friendship’s importance for women existed. Building on this revaluation of women’s affectionate bonds, this podcast explores friendship as a vital force in feminist organising, community-building, and practices of mutual care.

The podcast explores feminist understandings of friendship as a plural space of interaction through which women have found mediation between themselves and the public domain. It reflects on how bonds of friendship nurture acts of alliance, resistance, and reciprocity, in which participants both listen and feel heard, see and are seen.

Recorded at the end of year marked by Covid-19, during which many people have felt isolated and anxious, “Nothing worth doing is done alone” reconsiders the importance of sharing and holding space, collective thinking and reading. It also celebrates the sheer pleasure of being together.

Feminist Duration

Friendship operates as a key principal within the Feminist Duration Reading Group. Befriending earlier periods of feminist activity and feminisms outside the dominant canon, the group fosters a mood of intimate exchange where references and citations became shared resources.

Listen

Podcast link here

Contributors

Contributors include regular FDRG participants and collaborators as well as people who have hosted recent meetings within institutional and domestic settings. Also featured are excerpts from recordings of FDRG sessions at the South London Gallery and Hypatia Trust in Penzance.

Joan Anim-Addo, Olivia Berkowicz, Angelica Bollettinari, Rosie Cooper, Kezia Davies, Flora Dunster, Haley Ha, Taey Iohe, Alexandra Kokoli, Lucy Lopez, Laura Malacart, Kim McAleese, Gabby Moser, Sara Paiola, Helena Reckitt, Sasha Roseneil, Ehryn Torrell

Podcast Concept

Sabrina Fuller and Helena Reckitt

Editing and Composition

Sabrina Fuller

Thanks

The FDRG is grateful to Delpha Hudson for her recording of “Feminist Readings” which she organised at Hypatia Trust in January 2019

Title

The podcast’s name comes from “Everything Worthwhile is Done With Other People,” a 2019 interview with Mariame Kaba by Eve L Ewing, referenced in the contribution by Lucy Lopez

Image

screenshot from Il femminismo a Milano: Femminismo e 150 ore, MeMoMI, edited by Lea Melandri, 2014

See U th3re

“Nothing Worth Doing is Done Alone” was commissioned by Annette Hans, Marie Kuhn, and Anne Meerpohl as part of See U th3re - Dialogue between Windows, a 2020-2021 collaboration between Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof and HFBK Hamburg (the Hamburg art school) on visibility, friendship, feminism, organization and care.

https://www.hfbk-hamburg.de/de/aktuelles/see-U-th3re/

Podcast References

Joan Anim-Addo, “Activist-mothers maybe, sisters surely? Black British feminism, absence and transformation,” Feminist Review, no.108 black british feminisms (2014): 44-60.

Khairani Barokka, Indigenous Species (London: Tilted Axis Press, 2016).

Svetlana Boym, “Scenography of Friendship: Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and anchovy paste,” Cabinet, Winter, Issue 36 Friendship (Winter 2009–2010) https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/36/boym.php

Adriana Cavarero, “On the Outskirts of Milan,” in Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 1997), 55-66.

Lia Cigarini and Luisa Muraro, “Politica and Pratica politica,” Critica Marxista, no 3-4 (May-August 1992), 3-4.

Céline Condorelli, The Company She Keeps (London: Book Works, 2014), https://celinecondorelli.eu/text/the-company-she-keeps/

Céline Condorelli, “Notes on Friendship”, Mousse 32 (February 2012), 222 -227.

Eve L Ewing, “Mariame Kaba: Everything Worthwhile is Done With Other People,” Adi Magazine, Domestic Dissonance, (Autumn 2019), https://adimagazine.com/articles/mariame-kaba-everything-worthwhile-is-done-with- other-people/

Johanna Hedva, “Sick Woman Theory,” Mask Magazine, the not again issue, (January 2016), http://www.maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/sick-woman-Theory

Johanna Hedva, “Get Well Soon!” (2020), https://getwellsoon.labr.io/

Taey Iohe, Care for Collective Curatorial Practice, https://taey.com/ccc

Jane Jin Kaisen & Guston Sondin-Kung, The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger, HD Video 16:9, single channel. 72 minutes. Colour / B&W, 2010 

Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective, “More Women Than Men,” in Italian Feminist Thought: A Reader, eds. Paola Bono and Sandra Kemp (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 110-11.

Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective, Sexual Difference: A Theory of Socio-Symbolic Practice, trans. Teresa de Lauretis (Bloomington: The University of Indiana Press, 1990), 30-31.

Naomi, Petra, Jane, Julie, Rachel, Kate, Jane, Lucy, and Nicole, “Finding Each Other at School;” in Spare Rib Reader, ed. Marsha Rowe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), 595.

Sasha Roseneil, “Foregrounding Friendship: Feminist Pasts, Feminist Futures,” in Kathy Davis, Mary Evans, Judith Lorber (eds) Handbook of Gender and Women’s

 

Click here to listen to all the contributions:

https://www.feministduration.com/podcastfeminismandfrienship

Nothing Worth Doing is Done Alone, podcast announcement, 8 January 2021
Feminism and Censorship

Feminism and Censorship
Juliet Jacques: Forms of Resistance in Trans Life Writing

Juliet Jacques: Forms of Resistance in Trans Life Writing