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

Pratibha Parmar: Disrupting Paradigms

Pratibha Parmar: Disrupting Paradigms

Feminist Duration
2026

This screening and discussion with filmmaker and activist Pratibha Parmar focuses on two of her short films commissioned by Channel 4 for Out on Tuesday (later OUT), the world’s first nationally networked television series aimed at a gay and lesbian audience. Khush (1991) and Double The Trouble, Twice The Fun (1992) are two early examples of Parmar’s groundbreaking film practice, which has been raising issues central to feminism for over four decades: ‘My passion is firmly focused at the intersections of art and social justice. I have always been compelled to tell stories of people relegated to the margins of mainstream culture. I get excited by collaborating with like-minded humans creating moving images, building different kinds of worlds and possibilities and disrupting existing paradigms.’ 

Screening

Khush (1991)

Pratibha Parmar | UK, 24 minutes

Khush means ecstatic pleasure in Urdu. For South Asian lesbians and gay men in Britain, North America, and India the term captures the blissful intricacies of being queer and of color. Inspiring testimonies bridge geographical differences to locate shared experiences of isolation alongside the unremitting joys and solidarity of being “khush”.

Double The Trouble, Twice The Fun (1992)

Pratibha Parmar | UK, 24 minutes

Made with UK disability arts communities, this documentary drama explores issues around sexuality and disability. Interviews with a wide range of disabled lesbian and gay people are intercut with recreations and performances, dispelling the myth that all disabled people are unhappy or have no sexual identity. It also looks at the difficulties of enduring prejudice as both a disabled and gay person.

Readings

Following the screening, we will read excerpts from and discuss Parmar’s essay ‘The Moment of Emergence’, published in Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Film and Video (1993), a collection of writing by video artists, filmmakers, and critics co-edited by Parmar, Martha Gever and John Greyson. Parmar begins her essay: ‘To be an artist, a lesbian and a woman of color engaged in mapping out our visual imaginations is both exciting and exhausting’. She goes on to reflect on her working practices as a filmmaker, video artist and cultural activist, unfolding this within her personal and historical context, with the aim of contributing to the development of a theoretical framework for discussing the cultural and political significance of black arts in postcolonial Britain.

Access

Goldsmiths CCA has step-free, no-step access to the venue. More detailed accessibility information is available via the CCA website.  We are keen to support visitors with any specific requirements regarding their attendance. If you would like to request assistance or discuss access, contact the CCA office; goldsmithscca [@] gold.ac.uk or FDRG feministduration [@] gmail.com

Bio

Pratibha Parmar’s films have shaped the politics of feminist, queer, and diasporic visual cultures for over four decades. From experimental shorts to activist documentaries and feature-length works, Parmar’s cinematic language operates as an act of visual justice. Her practice engages the image as a site of struggle—challenging the power relations that determine who is seen, how they are represented, and what forms of visual expression are made possible. Her films are a site of narrative transformation, where memory, activism, and artistic expression converge to resist erasure and imagine new futures. Parmar was a Visiting Artist at Stanford University (2014) and also an Associate Professor in the Film Program at California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2014-2021); and is a published author and editor of several anthologies. The Institute of Contemporary Arts  (ICA London) and Sming Sming Books (U.S.) published, Our Eyes as Commonly Tender: Visual Justice in the Filmmaking of Pratibha Parmar edited by Nydia Swaby & Pratibha Parmar in 2025.

Booking

You can book a free place here.

THIS EVENT IS BOUND TO BE POPULAR. ADVANCE BOOKING IS RECOMMENDED!

Feminist Duration Reading Group

This event is organised by Beth Bramich as part of the Feminist Duration Reading Group’s residency at Goldsmith CCA, and is supported by a British Art Network Bursary.

As ever, FDRG events are open to feminists of all generations and genders. No advance preparation is required as we will watch Parmar’s film, and read out loud from the text, together on the day.

Image:

Still from Khush (Pratibha Parmar, 1991). Courtesy of the artist and Kali Films.

Bibliographic Activism: Researching Under-Represented Cultures and Lineages

Bibliographic Activism: Researching Under-Represented Cultures and Lineages
Moyra Davey, Les Goddesses

Moyra Davey, Les Goddesses