INVOKING THE ARCHIVE, GROWING NEW WORLDS

MATERIALS FOR A FEMINIST FUTURE

Copyright : Collage based on archival materials from the Italian Wages for Housework Campaign; research: Barbara Mahlknecht, graphic design by Anna Moschioni

Curatorial installation by Barbara Mahlknecht

Barbara Mahlknecht, curator, artistic mediator and doctoral researcher at the Goldsmiths University of London, presents an installation based on her ongoing research of the Wages for Housework movement in Italy.

Drawing on materials from the Archive of Feminist Struggle in Padua, four large banners trace key struggles of the campaign: the call to remunerate housework, the fight for childcare and social services, resistance to violence against women and demands around contraception, maternity and birth.

Documents, pamphlets, leaflets and photographs reveal the richness and complexity of feminist organising in 1970s Italy. The banners revive feminist demands and refusals in a contemporary visual language, calling for solidarity with present-day struggles.

An audio piece using testimonies from Leopoldina Fortunati, Antonella Picchio, Giuliana Pincelli, Alessandra de Perini and Dacia Maraini investigates how enacting transgenerational feminist memory can become a practice that nurtures resistance against exploitative, extractivist and fascist politics.

In the spirit of Wages for Housework, these materials for a feminist future celebrate the creation of new worlds and collective bonds, with care at its centre.

 With the support of Forum culturel autrichien