Margaret Harrison is a leading reference in the development of Conceptual art and continues to be a relevant and radical contemporary artist today.
By taking Harrison's work as a starting point, we have invited a multi-generational group of artists, art historians and cultural workers to explore the ‘political turn’ in British Conceptual art, including its concentration on feminist concerns.
This event, which fuses conversation and contemporary practice – will explore questions such as: How have pioneering conceptualists such as Harrison influenced younger generations of artists? Can we conceive of a feminist reading of the era? And if so, what resonance does this hold for contemporary art and artists today?
Biographies
Rózsa Zita Farkas is a curator and the founder of Arcadia Missa gallery & publisher. Rozsa has curated and co-curated various projects and exhibitions such as Rehearsals in Instability for Vienna's 'Curated By' festival (2015), The Posthuman Era Became a Girl at the South London Gallery (2014) and Re-Materialising Feminism project across the ICA and other spaces (2014 & 2015). She has recently curated Ways of Living at David Roberts Art Foundation, and Finding the Body symposium at Central Saint Martin's. She is associate lecturer for MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and for BA Fine Art Dissertations at Camberwell College of Arts (both UAL).
Margaret Harrison was one of the Founders of the first Women’s Liberation Art group in London in 1971.
Since then she has shown continuously both nationally and internationally. Recent one person, shows include On Reflection at the Ronald Feldman Gallery New York; We are Them, They are us Golden Thread gallery Belfast: and Accumulations at MIMA UK. In 2014 Harisson was awarded the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Visual Arts Award, London and the 2013 Northern Art Prize, Leeds. Her work is in several museum collections including the, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kunsthaus Zurich, MIMA, and many private collections. This year Harrison was named by ArtLyst Magazine as one of the top 10 Feminist Artists.
Alexandra M. Kokoli is BA Fine Art Joint Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture at Middlesex University and Research Associate at VIAD, University of Johannesburg. Her monograph The Feminist Uncanny in Theory and Art Practice is published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2016.
Loraine Leeson is a visual artist particularly known for her 1980’s cultural campaigning in support of the communities of London’s Docklands and subsequent socially engaged work in East London. She is director of cSPACE, Senior Research Fellow at University of Westminster and is leading a new MA in Art and Social Practice at Middlesex University.
Sarah Maple completed a BA in Fine Art in 2007 and in the same year won the 4 New Sensations award, run by The Saatchi Gallery. Sarah’s artwork, film and performances have been exhibited internationally including The Southbank Centre (London), Golden Thread Gallery (Belfast) and Kunisthoone (Estonia). In 2015 she released her first art book You Could Have Done This. She is currently working on her next solo exhibition on freedom of speech for the New Art Exchange for 2017.
