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

Iran Protests - Women, Life, Freedom

Iran Protests - Women, Life, Freedom

Feminist Duration
2022

This listening session focuses on the podcast ‘Iran Protests- Women Life Freedom,’ by Fari Bradley.  We will listen together to the podcast, share reactions to it, as well as tactics for solidarity and resistance with the people of Iran.

 Made in October 2022, the podcast features the voices of activists and protestors in the Women Life Freedom movement, who submitted their recordings anonymously. We also hear from activist Steve Marsling who as a teenager in South East London worked for the end of the bloody South African Apartheid regime.  

On 16 September 2022 twenty-two-year-old Kurd Mahsa Amini died in hospital after being beaten by Iran’s Guidance Patrol, or ‘morality police’, for wearing her hijab ‘improperly.’ Her death sparked momentous protests in Iran and around the world, raising a movement labelled the "first feminist revolution" in the region.  Protests grew to encompass the diverse grievances of Iranian women, with many removing and ritualistically burning their hijabs. Across the diaspora, Iranian women are cutting their hair in solidarity. Building on the Green Movement (or ‘Persian Awakening’) of 2009, these protests are part of a burgeoning political arts and culture movement and intergenerational activism. With no identifiable leader to assassinate, women and children throughout Iran lead this uprising alongside their parents and grandparents, and striking oil, steel and other industrial workers.

www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/iran-protests_clear-spot-longer-edit/

For Reference

Nazanin Shahrokni, ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ (22 November 2022), www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/women-life-freedom

Fari Bradley

Fari Bradley (b. Iran) is an artist engaging with listening, language and the environment.  Her research-based practice spans the mediums of performance, broadcast, installation and sculpture. Core methodologies revolve around experimentalism, deep listening and exercises in modes of communication and reception. Bradley’s works employ treated found objects, textiles and electronics. Her live performances stage interplays between architecture, public space and history, provoking and repositioning the listener, questioning our sense of self and our place within both society and nature.

 With a history of live, broadcast and prerecorded collaborations, Bradley is a member of London noise-improv quartet Oscillatorial Binnage 2013-present, recently releasing the album Agitations: Post-Electronic Noise on Sub Rosa). With sound art duo Bradley-Weaver, working with sound artist and archivist Christopher John Weaver in UK and the Middle East since 2013, Bradley released a limited edition artist-vinyl record, Systems for a Score with The Vinyl Factory, UK, made during a live-in installation for their eponymous solo show at Tashkeel (Dubai), 2014.

Living and working around the Persian Gulf, (different Emirates in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Pakistan), Bradley had solo shows and a series of Bradley-Weaver sound art exhibitions and projects. Beyond that, sound pieces and experimental musical performance commissions included for example at the Beirut Arts Centre, Lebanon and at The Media Majlis, Northwestern University, Qatar. Bradley is a member of CRiSAP (Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice), researching a practice-based PhD in Sound Arts at the London College of Communication (LCC), University of the Arts (UAL).

Eventbrite Registration

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/iran-protests-women-life-freedom-tickets-474809767797?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=escb

Image Description

The image depicts a photograph of the silhouette of a figure dressed in black, with curly shoulder-length hair, left arm raised and hand forming a fist.  With their back to the viewer, the figure stands before the green, red and white horizontal stripes of Iran’s national flag.  

Sleepless with Leah Clements & Jenn Ashworth

Sleepless with Leah Clements & Jenn Ashworth
Kinetic Readings of Carolee Schneemann’s Body Politics

Kinetic Readings of Carolee Schneemann’s Body Politics