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Expanding the Parameters of Feminist Artivism Edited by Gillian Hannum · Kyunghee Pyun Expanding the Parameters of Feminist Artivism Gillian Hannum • Kyunghee Pyun Editors Expanding the Parameters of Feminist Artivism Editors Gillian Hannum Kyunghee Pyun Manhattanville College Fashion Institute of Technology Purchase, NY, USA State University of New York New York, NY, USA ISBN 978-3-031-09377-7 ISBN 978-3-031-09378-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09378-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or here- after developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Cyndi Hoelzle / EyeEm / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland A cknowledgments This anthology has its roots in a panel presentation at the 109th Annual Conference of the College Art Association, held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic from February 10 to 13, 2021. Our session, “Political Engagement of Women Artists: An International Perspective on Status Negotiation,” brought together practicing artists and art historians to consider how women artists from a variety of cultures, East and West, or from the combined space resulting from relocation and immigration, are utilizing their artistic practices to bring about social and political change. The panel included papers by Soojung Hyun, Sandy Lane and Joo Yeon Woo, Michelle Lim, and Deborah Saleeby-Mulligan; Sooran Choi served as discussant. All but Lim, who had to suspend her work with a group of artists in Myanmar due to the political situation in that country, have expanded their papers into chapters for this book. We thank all of them and Lim, the thoughtful audience members who attended our panel, and the organizers of the conference, for encouraging us to start a book project. Through our work together, we came to realize that there was a need for an expanded understanding of “feminist” artivism—one that would also include trans and non-binary artists and voices—and that exist- ing volumes have continued to focus too exclusively on white artists from North America and Europe. This encouraged us to cast a wide net as we communicated with artists and scholars from around the world, inviting their contributions. Gillian and Kyunghee are grateful to the contributors who agreed to be part of this project and to be engaged in a productive conversation during a rigorous review process. They also wish to give v vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS special thanks to New York University student Heewon Yang for editorial assistance, and Nick Hall for copy editing. Gillian, who came of age in the early 1970s during the second wave of feminism, benefitted from enrolling in the first Women’s Studies class offered at her undergraduate institution, Principia College. As a graduate student in art history at Pennsylvania State University, her mentor in photographic history, the late Heinz Henisch (1922–2006), encouraged her research interest in women photographers. At Manhattanville College, where she spent her teaching career, she introduced several courses on photographic history, including one focused on women photographers. She would like to thank her colleagues in art history at Manhattanville, Megan Cifarelli, Lisa Rafanelli, and Deborah Saleeby-Mulligan, for their encouragement and support, and Deborah for her essay in this anthology; all have had long-standing research interests in issues surrounding gender. She would also like to thank studio art colleague Randy Williams for intro- ducing her to the work of photographer Ming Smith and for his reading of and comments on her chapter. She also thanks Ming Smith and her studio for her collaboration on the essay. Finally, she would like to thank her husband, Randall Hannum, for both moral and technical support as this project came to fruition. Kyunghee acknowledges her professors who were second-wave feminist activists. The late professor Linda Nochlin (1931–2017) was a major influence on her and her colleagues who studied art history at the Institute of Fine Arts in the late 1990s. Kyunghee was also privileged to work with Professors Nancy Regalado and Evelyn Vitz in the Medieval and Renaissance Programs at New York University. Professor Penelope Johnson, who taught monastic history at New York University, was pivotal for Kyunghee to learn methodologies of feminism. Kyunghee’s dissertation advisor, Professor Jonathan J. G. Alexander, was an open-minded intellectual who truly showed respect and support for feminist scholars, having been part of the British Marxist intellectuals in the 1980s. It was also during this period that Professor Carolyn Dinshaw and Professor Mary Carruthers at New York University introduced innovative ways to interpret medieval texts in the context of sexual desire and queerness. Kyunghee thanks her students and colleagues who remained supportive of her interest in women’s political engagement and her advocacy for an inclusive community of women and gender non-conforming people in creative industries. Kyunghee wrote a dissertation on illuminated manu- scripts made for a Benedictine monastery in Saint-Denis, France. Although ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii this was a community of male monks, she has written on intersectionality of dress, portraiture, and identity politics. She has focused on the study of masculinity in medieval Europe and contemporary Asian-American art communities for two decades. The recent political climate of the #MeToo Movement and the sexist ideology of regulating women’s bodily auton- omy generated much discussion in her own classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), where more than 90 percent of the student body are women or gender non-conforming people. KJ Prince Cunningham, sociologist at the Fashion Institute of Techno- logy, gave valuable comments in the initial stage of this book project. Jung-Whan Marc De Jong, Praveen Chaudhry, Souzeina Moushtaq, Yasemin Selik Levine, Anna Blume, and Andrew Weinstein, all colleagues at FIT, shared their views and thoughts on the development of feminist scholarship in their respective fields. Most importantly, students from different national and ethnic backgrounds with a fluid sense of gender identity have inspired Kyunghee to look beyond academia and her own ethnonational background as Korean. It was this powerful encounter with people—authentic and alive—that drove Kyunghee to publish this book. Kyunghee thanks the artists who engaged her in conversations on gender and sexuality in unconventional formats: Mikyung Kim, a pioneering con- ceptual artist; Debbie Han, a cosmopolitan artist of “goddesses”; and Kate Hers Rhee, a provocative thinker-performance artist. Yong Soon Min showed generosity by sharing her thoughts and concerns when it comes to educating young people. Kyunghee acknowledges that contributing authors in her other book, American Art from Asia: Artistic Praxis and Theoretical Divergence, provided much needed updates on the literature in fields encompassing both socially responsible contemporary art and feminist activism. Kyunghee also wishes to thank Gillian for providing a model of collegi- ality and commitment to feminist art history. When Kyunghee was teaching as a part-time instructor in Gillian’s department of art history at Manhattanville College, Gillian—the department chair—showed an example of solidarity by arranging for young instructors to teach at times convenient for child care while she herself taught mostly in the early morn- ings and evenings. It was also Gillian who encouraged Kyunghee and Deborah Saleeby-Mulligan to collaborate further, creating the exhibition Violated Bodies: New Languages for Justice and Humanity held at three different venues throughout 2018. Those years were instrumental for all viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS of us to turn theoretical principles into lived experiences that impacted on many people’s lives. Finally, Kyunghee would like to thank her sons, Justin and Alex, and her husband, Jin. Kyunghee and Justin were part of the Women’s March in 2017, which prompted her to pursue the exhibition of Violated Bodies. Both Justin and Alex constantly challenged Kyunghee to shatter rigid thinking, conscious or subconscious, about gender stereotypes and ethnic profiling, while Jin showed a model of shared governance of the house- hold. Most importantly, Kyunghee honors her parents, who never set lim- its on her education or intellectual aspirations. c ontents Part I I ntroduction 1 Introduction: Artists for Political Engagement: A Table for Women and Gender Non-conforming Artists 3 Kyunghee Pyun Part II Countering Colonialism 27 Native Feminisms and Contemporary Art: Indigeneity, Gender, and Diné Resurgence in the Work of Natani Notah and Jolene Nenibah Yazzie 29 Elizabeth S. Hawley Disrupting the Silence: Australian Aboriginal Art as a Political Act 51 Fiona Foley Part III Against the Establishment 65 Spanking Confucius: The Feminist Protest Art of Kang-ja Jung 67 Sooran Choi ix x CONTENTS From Non-conformism to Feminisms: Russian Women Artists from the 1970s to Today 87 Natalia Kolodzei The Personal and the Political in Liminal Space: A Conversation Between Sandy Lane and Joo Yeon Woo Addressing Artivism in the Korean DMZ 109 Sandy Lane and Joo Yeon Woo From South Africa to Afghanistan and America: An Exploration of Female Street Artists and the Socially Disruptive Nature of Their Work 129 Deborah Saleeby-Mulligan Part IV Dislocation and Migration 143 Yong Soon Min’s Defining Moments: Gendered Space of Decolonization in the Pacific 145 Soojung Hyun Sited Nomadism from the Atlantic to West Africa: Addoley Dzegede 167 Ila Nicole Sheren Alterity in Europe—Occupying Spaces as Feminist Strategy in (Post)Migration Aesthetics: A Conversation 185 Parastou Forouhar and Cathrine Bublatzky Maria Jose Arjona, Into the Woods 205 Maria Jose Arjona and Jennifer Burris Part V Race and Gender Identity 225 Blurring Lines/Breaking Barriers: Harlem and Beyond, the Career of International Photographer Ming Smith 227 Gillian Hannum