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 in London with the Advocacy Academy, Artangel, Barbican Art Gallery, Cell Project Space, Chelsea Space, Chisenhale Gallery, the Drawing Room, Feminist Library, Flat Time House, Goethe Institute, Goldsmiths CCA, Mimosa House, Mosaic Rooms, The Showroom, Sine Screen, South Kiosk, Studio Voltaire, Tate Modern, in collaboration with AntiUniversity, the Department of Feminist Conversations, and FIELDNOTES, and as part of The Table at the Swiss Church.

Elsewhere in the UK the FDRG has 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.        

Internationally we have partnered with Emilia-Amalia at Art Metropole in Toronto, Canada; Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof and HFBK Hamburg, Germany; and with ‘Hope is a Dscipline’ curators as part of the 2024 October Salon in Belgrade, Serbia. In 2025 the group contributed to Mundos Habitables (Liveable Worlds), an online resource devised by Peruvian-based curator Susan Quinilan.

Online international meetings have been held with groups including Radical Sense in Tirana, Albania, Mai Ling in Vienna, Austria, and the Gender Studies journal in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

In 2015, at the end of the FDRG’s first year, seven members - Angelica Bolletinari, 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 London.  

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. From 2025 - 2027 we are Residents at Goldsmiths CCA, London.

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, Lina Džuverović, Sabrina Fuller, Taey Iohe, Mariana Lemos, Katrin Lock, Helena Reckitt, and Dot Zhihan Jia.

Former Working Group Former members are Giulia Antonioli, Angelica Bollettinari, Lily Evans-Hill, Félicie Kertudo, Ceren Özpinar, Sara Paiola, Justin Seng, Ehryn Torrell, 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, Anna Barham, 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, Berit Fischer, Lynne Friedli, Sabrina Fuller, Diana Georgiou, Rose Gibbs, Marija Iva Gocic, Valeria Graziano, Laura Guy, Haley Ha, Lily Hall, Nora Heidorn, Minna Henriksson, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, Yurika Imaseki, Taey Iohe, Félicie Kertudo, Hristina Cvetlincann Knezevic, Alexandra Kokoli, Jessie Krish, Mariana Lemos, Mai Ling, Barbara Mahlknecht, Alex Martinis Roe, Jessa Mockridge, Jet Moon, Gabby Moser, Roisin O’Sullivan, Ceren Özpinar, Frances Painter Fleming, Grace Eunhye Park, Sara Paiola, Natalia Paunic, Raju Rage, Helena Reckitt, Irene Revell, Lidia Salvatori, Elif Sarican, E Scourti, Justin Seng, Sarah Shin, Zorana Simic, Something Other, Cecilia Sosa, Amy Tobin, Ehryn Torrell, Emma Yifan Wang, Ana Simona Zellenovic, and Dot Zhihan Jia.

Artists, Writers & Collectives

Sessions have been dedicated to texts and artworks including those by Clay AD, Naadje Al-Aali, Joan Anim-Addo, Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, Gloria Anzaldua, Jenn Ashworth, Margot Badran, Sita Balani, Anna Barham, Khairani Barokka, Marquis Bey, Chiai Bonfiglioli, Anne Boyer, Brixton Black Women’s Group, adrienne maree brown, Wilmette Brown, Octavia E 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, Diane di Prima, Lauren Craig, Galit Criden, Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, Abri De Swardt, Maria Puig De La Bellacasa, Leah Clements, Claudia Durastanti, JJJJJ Ellis, Silvia Federici, Ray Filar, Leopoldina Fortunati, Leta Hong Fincher, Shulamith Firestone, Lauren Fournier, Takana Fuego, Ruth Frankenberg, Olivia Guaraldo, Katie Hare, Johanna Hedva, bell hooks, Kim Hyesoon, Onyeka Igwe, Sanja Iveković, Juliet Jacques, N K Jemison, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner and Aka Niviana, Marie Elizabeth Johnson, Jane Jin Kaisen, Banu Kapil, Jasleen Kaur, AE Kings, Larissa Lai, Andrea Lawlor, Naja Lee Langvad, 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, D Mortimer, Antonella Nappi, Astrida Neimanis, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyen, Abdullah Ocalan, Naomi Okabe, Pauline Oliveros, Lola Olufemi, Sue O’Sullivan, Tanja Ostojić, Cecilia Palmeiro, Queer Beograd, Elizabeth Price, Darija Radaković, Raju Rage, Claudia Rankine, Tabita Rezaire, Rivolta Femminile, Lucia Egana Rojas, Sasha Roseneil, Gail Rubin, Lou Lou Sainsbury + Kari Rosenfeld, Sofia Samatar, Suzanne Santoro, E Scourti, Selma Selman, Christina Sharpe, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Rhea Storr, Latif Tas, Miriam Ticktin, Tiqqun, Rosa-Johan Uddoh, Iris Uurto, Nafu Wang, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, Katri Vala, Vron Ware, Wages Due Lesbians, Wages for Housework, Francis Whorrall-Campbell, 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

Listening Across Difference: Tools of Empathy and Mutual Recognition

Listening Across Difference: Tools of Empathy and Mutual Recognition

Feminist Duration
2026

This workshop is the second event in  Feminist tools for working across difference, the CHASE-funded PhD training series organised in collaboration with the FDRG. The meeting ncludes presentations on methodologies of sound and listening within sonic arts, oral history, and feminist activism, a listening session, and opportunities to share current listening-oriented research.

Presentations by artist Annie Goh, feminist scholar and activist Tanya Serisier and oral historian Rosa Schling activate a wide-ranging exploration of the different forms listening can take in research, and their creative and political mobilisation. Questions of justice, ethics, vulnerability and situated knowledge thread through the range of feminist research methods presented.

The workshop includes a listening session, group discussion, and concluding reflections from Professor Nirmal Puwar, whose research explores space and politics, with respect to bodies, race and gender. Workshop participants will be encouraged to share their reflections on their own work involving listening, and/or their responses to the speakers’ presentations.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL!

You can book a Free Place here

SCHEDULE

2pm-2.20pm:  Welcome and Introductions

2.20pm - 3.20pm: Speaker Presentations

Annie Goh, Sounding Situated Knowledges. Drawing on her work examining the field of archaeoacoustics, Goh advocates for the figure of echo to be re-imagined as a feminist and decolonial figuration.

Tanya Serisier on political listening in the fight for justice for survivors of sexual abuse.

Rosa Schling – 'You really need to see what we did in the past': learning from oral histories of 'childcare' activism. Informed by oral history interviews about early childhood education and care activism from the late 1960s onwards, Schling reflects on feminist oral history's potential to inform contemporary social change.

3.20-4.10pm: Discussion

Workshop participants divide into small groups to discuss their projects and how they are using interviews/oral histories/listening/sound in their research and practice.  

4.10-4.30pm: Break  

4.30-5.30: Listening Session 

Extracts provided by speakers will stimulate shared responses to what has been heard.  

5.30pm-6pm: Concluding Remarks

Nirmal Puwar takes the lead in offering concluding remarks,  along with the organisers/speakers/participants.   

BIOS

Annie Goh is an artist and researcher. Her work, in its numerous forms from sound installation, composition and computer music to writing, performance and social practice, takes a critical approach to contemporary debates in the fields of digital technologies, media arts, generative and computational processes and communication studies, with a particular focus on sound, intersectional feminism, decolonial theory and the politics of knowledge production. She is Course Leader & Senior Lecturer in BA Sound Arts/BA Sound Arts: Design/BA Sound Arts: Experimental Music at LCC and a member of CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice). https://researchers.arts.ac.uk/1618-annie-goh

Nirmal  Puwar is a Professor based in Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. She co-leads the MA Gender, Media, Culture programme, which has creative conceptual practice as a central thread. Puwar is also the Co-Director of the Centre for Feminist Research. A twenty year anniversary issue Re-visiting Space Invaders has just been published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies (Vol.28, Issue 5, 2005).  https://www.gold.ac.uk/sociology/staff/puwar/

Rosa Schling is an oral historian who has conducted several community-based research projects on the history of childcare, parenting and community action. She co-founded On the Record in 2012 and is currently an MPhil/PhD student at the Institute of Education, UCL, researching the history of early childhood education and care activism, funded by the AHRC. https://www.ohs.org.uk/who-we-are/trainers/ 

Tanya Serisier is Professor of Feminist Theory, School of Social Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London.  Her research explores the cultural politics of sexuality and sexual violence from a feminist and queer perspective. She has published widely on feminism, sexual assault and survivor politics, including in her 2018 book, Speaking Out: Feminism, Rape and Narrative Politics.
https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8858733/tanya-serisier.

Image caption: Annie Goh, Myths of Echo, 2021, courtesy the artist 

VENUE INFORMATION

NB The event takes place at the Courtauld's Vernon Square campus near Kings Cross, NOT Somerset House

Arrival

  • The Courtauld's Vernon Square campus can be found at Vernon Square, Penton Rise, London, WC1X 9EW

  • The closest tube station is Kings Cross Underground Station

  • Please have a copy of your TicketTailor mobile ticket with you

  • If you are unable to locate your ticket, please bring a note of your order number to help us locate your booking.

  • Entrances to our lecture theatres are at the front of the room, so please try to avoid arriving late as this may disrupt the event.

Vernon Square Facilities

  • All rooms are accessible by lift.

  • There are gendered bathrooms on the ground, first, and third floors, and accessible, unisex bathrooms on every floor.

  • Bike racks are available outside the building

  • A hearing loop is in place in the Lecture Theatre

  • If you have any additional accessibility requirements or have any questions, please contact researchforum@courtauld.ac.uk

  

Claire Fontaine + Anita Chari

Claire Fontaine + Anita Chari