Ardent Spaces, Formidable Environments
Fierce: Women's Hot Blooded Film/Video, Mar. 2010, pp. 40-47
Hamilton: McMaster Museum of Art, 2010
Patricia Zimmerman writes an artful review of Fierce: Women's Hot Blooded Film/Video, featuring Dana Claxton, Maureen Bradley, Allyson Mitchell, and b.h.Yael. Zimmerman identifies a commonality binding the artists work in this cohesive exhibition, extending beyond gender. Coming from the legacy of feminist media practices, yet moving beyond identity politics in to media work that is more relational, the exhibition successfully creates flexible environments across genres. Common threads running through the exhibition are 'poly phonics" (music), topics of micro-territories (queer identity, childhood memory, Israel/Palestine conflict), and "ardent space" (converting a linear forward drive of the temporal in to an open horizontal space). "In Fierce, media work blends discourses, practices, and spectators, enfolding the polarizations, oppositions, and contradictions of earlier feminist works".
ITEM 2010.008 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
Hope – Dana Claxton
Buffalo Bone China – Dana Claxton
Birthday Suit Management: a 21C homage to Lisa Steele – Maureen Bradley
Melty Kitty – Allyson Mitchell
precious little tiny love – Allyson Mitchell
I want to know why – Dana Claxton
Anwolek Regatta City – Dana Claxton
My Life in 5 Minutes – Allyson Mitchell
What I remember – Maureen Bradley
Stranded – Maureen Bradley
a hot sandfilled wind – b.h. Yael
(of)fences – b.h. Yael
trading the future – b.h. Yael