Maria Luisa Coelho | University of Oxford (original) (raw)

Papers by Maria Luisa Coelho

New Perspectives in Diasporic Experience, 2014

In ‘Who Needs “Identity”?’ Stuart Hall concludes that ‘identities are never unified . . . never s... more In ‘Who Needs “Identity”?’ Stuart Hall concludes that ‘identities are never unified . . . never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices and positions.’ According to Hall, then, identity needs to be thought of as a production, which is never complete, but always in process. A processual notion of identity has been central to the development of Diaspora studies, as indeed Homi Bhabha’s emphasis on postcolonial subjects as placed within ‘a cultural hybridity that entertains difference.’ Also important is the suggestion of cultural identity as constructed in and through representation, which, at the same time, can be part of ‘those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences.’ Cultural representations should thus be understood as hybrid forms, embedded with differing points of view on the world. Framed by the previous theoretical debate, in this chapter I intend to analyse contemporary visual artwork by Aurore de Sousa, a Portuguese-French artist, within the context of her migrant experience, in order to discuss the effects of that dissemination in the visual construction of a fluid and plural sense of identity. I argue that the intercultural space which this woman inhabits has led her to the questioning of the opposite terms identity and difference, location and dislocation, home and foreign, past and present. Moreover, I also want to put forward the notion of a gendered Diaspora by looking at what, in the works under consideration, is influenced by an experience lived in the feminine. In particular, I will look at the way this artist conflates motherland with the mother’s body and tries to re-establish a maternal genealogy.

Helena Almeida (1934-2018) is one of the most interesting and relevant artists in Portuguese cont... more Helena Almeida (1934-2018) is one of the most interesting and relevant artists in Portuguese contemporary art, having produced an oeuvre of great integrity and consistency, in which the body of the artist and processes of self-representation (always in an ambivalent, subversive and transgressive relation with that same art tradition) took centre stage. Taking the work Family portrait (1979) as its starting point, this article will explore the relation Almeida had with the familiar, be it in personal, artistic or national terms, as all these dimensions of the concept cannot be dissociated from each other when we look at this artist’s oeuvre.

Um agradecimento especial à Prof. Dr" Ana Luísa Amaral, por me ter sempre acompanhado ao longo de... more Um agradecimento especial à Prof. Dr" Ana Luísa Amaral, por me ter sempre acompanhado ao longo de um percurso feito de dúvidas e de certezas, pelas apreciações críticas rigorosas e pelo interesse contínuo. Ainda os meus agradecimentos por ter revelado a poesia de Emily Dickinson nos seminários de mestrado; sem essa dádiva inicial, este trabalho não teria sido possível. Uma palavra de apreço ao Dr José Araújo Lima, pelas informações valiosas que forneceu e pelo interesse e tempo que, amavelmente, disponibilizou. Aos Profs. Drs Carlos Azevedo, Rui Carvalho Homem e Teresa Castilho, pelo contributo que deram para a realização desta dissertação nos seus seminários de mestrado. As reflexões sobre Literatura e Cultura Americanas, Poesia ou Teoria da Literatura preencheram lacunas e despertaram a vontade de aprofundar outras áreas de estudo.

for their warm welcome and contagious enthusiasm for Chadwick's work. In Autumn 2005 I eagerly we... more for their warm welcome and contagious enthusiasm for Chadwick's work. In Autumn 2005 I eagerly went to Stockholm, where a retrospective exhibition of Chadwick's work was taking place at Liljevalchs konsthall. My thanks go to Bo Nilsson, for his helpfulness during this visit, as well as for his insights into Chadwick's work. I also wish to express my gratitude to Anne Livion-Ingvarsson, who graciously agreed to meet me and discuss feminism and art in the Swedish context. Last but no least, my warmest thanks go to family and friends, who have generously given their love, support and understanding. In particular, I want to lovingly thank my parents, my children, Daniel and Helena, for giving me the opportunity to experience, first hand, motherhood as a contaminated form of being in the world, and Graeme, for his IT skills and ever-present love. This thesis is dedicated to them. I want to acknowledge the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia for awarding me a doctorate grant, which allowed me to undertake my research abroad, attend conferences and seminars and dedicate so much of my time and effort to this project. v

The Explicator, 2002

... The fairy tales of The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pome-granates reveal many ... more ... The fairy tales of The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pome-granates reveal many influences-Hans Christian Andersen, Blake, Carlyle-but ... of the fairy tales, Wilde's concern is exactly that of Pater in Mar-ius-to blend Christianity and the artistic life or aestheticism. ...

Catalogue to the exhibition 'Identities in Transit: Portuguese Women Artists since 1950, Taylor I... more Catalogue to the exhibition 'Identities in Transit: Portuguese Women Artists since 1950, Taylor Institute, University of Oxford, 10-24 March 2017. Co-written with Claudia Pazos-Alonso (University of Oxford)

Abstract: This article examines the work of Joana Vasconcelos in relation to feminist debates abo... more Abstract: This article examines the work of Joana Vasconcelos in relation to feminist debates about craft and the role of the artist in relation to her participants/cultural producers. It introduces the work of Carla Cruz's project RASTIHLO and Maria Nepomuceno's Tempo para Respirar (Breathing Time) as providing alternative strategies for co-operative working which rely on skill-sharing and mutually affirming approaches to working with participants in the production of artworks and projects. The political question of appropriation and promotion of individual identity in an international marketplace is at the heart of the feminist debates discussed.

In 1998 Portuguese artist Susana Mendes Silva attended a workshop in Sarajevo, shortly after the ... more In 1998 Portuguese artist Susana Mendes Silva attended a workshop in Sarajevo, shortly after the end of the Bosnian War (1992-95) and when the physical and psychological scars were still very much alive throughout the city. This paper analyses the two projects – Delicatesse and Untitled (Sarajevo) (1999) ¬– that resulted from Mendes Silva’s residency in Sarajevo. These explore the visible signs and resonances of an incredibly mediatised war through visual representations that are simultaneously suggestive of an intimate and domestic existence. In so doing, Mendes Silva’s work suggests warfare as a very public and political event that, nevertheless, is implicated in the private sphere and, as a result, experienced, negotiated and overcome at the level of the personal. Moreover, since attention is centred on activities and spaces traditionally associated with a feminine condition, the works reflect on the role played by women as historical social agents and the importance of gender in our understanding of war.

In ‘Who Needs “Identity”?’ Stuart Hall concludes that ‘identities are never unified . . . never s... more In ‘Who Needs “Identity”?’ Stuart Hall concludes that ‘identities are never unified . . . never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices and positions.’ According to Hall, then, identity needs to be thought of as a production, which is never complete, but always in process. A processual notion of identity has been central to the development of Diaspora studies, as indeed Homi Bhabha’s emphasis on postcolonial subjects as placed within ‘a cultural hybridity that entertains difference.’ Also important is the suggestion of cultural identity as constructed in and through representation, which, at the same time, can be part of ‘those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences.’ Cultural representations should thus be understood as hybrid forms, embedded with differing points of view on the world. Framed by the previous theoretical debate, in this chapter I intend to analyse contemporary visual artwork by Aurore de Sousa, a Portuguese-French artist, within the context of her migrant experience, in order to discuss the effects of that dissemination in the visual construction of a fluid and plural sense of identity. I argue that the intercultural space which this woman inhabits has led her to the questioning of the opposite terms identity and difference, location and dislocation, home and foreign, past and present. Moreover, I also want to put forward the notion of a gendered Diaspora by looking at what, in the works under consideration, is influenced by an experience lived in the feminine. In particular, I will look at the way this artist conflates motherland with the mother’s body and tries to re-establish a maternal genealogy.

In “The Laugh of the Medusa” French feminist Hélène Cixous defends that flying (‘voler’) is the g... more In “The Laugh of the Medusa” French feminist Hélène Cixous defends that flying (‘voler’) is the gesture of all women. Given that the word ‘voler’ means ‘to steal’ as well as ‘to fly’, Cixous emphasises a woman’s intention to spoil the order of space, changing the value or the connotations of the female body and turning its relevance upside down. However, if woman is not only a bird but also a thief, there is danger or risk involved in her actions and the possibility of failure.
In The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity, Mary Russo replaces Bakhtin’s emphasis on the production of an earthly grotesque, which, according to her, leaves a static and universalistic notion of the feminine securely in place, with a female grotesque “up there” and “out there”, so as to introduce a principle of turbulence, or uncertainty, into the configuration female/ grotesque. Similarly to Cixous, Russo’s aerialist performer creates a model for female subversion in which liberation, risk and failure are equally present.
Taking as a starting point the dual notion of women as fliers/ thieves and its implications, this paper discusses the presence of female aerial performers in the work of several contemporary women artists and writers as evidence of their complex relationship with a dominant and masculine art tradition.

Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, 2011

Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, 2011

In this paper we focus on the paths of two Portuguese women artists who are exemplars of the sign... more In this paper we focus on the paths of two Portuguese women artists who are exemplars of the significant turn in the Portuguese artistic context that occurred around the 1960s. Lourdes Castro and Helena Almeida were two of the first artists to leave Portugal and seek for a contact outside the politically and culturally asphyxiated country since the modernist generation had made its way in the Parisian ground earlier in the century. This is particularly relevant in the sense that these two artists’ ‘encounter with the world’ marks a definite breakthrough regarding Portuguese women artists’ role in the contemporary visual art scene.

In the 1990s, Judith Butler published a serious of groundbreaking texts where she explored the id... more In the 1990s, Judith Butler published a serious of groundbreaking texts where she explored the idea of the performativity of gender and the body. According to this critic gender attributes are not expressive but performative, which means that “there is no preexisting identity by which an act or attribute might be measured . . . and the postulation of a true gender identity would be revealed as a regulatory fiction” (1990:180). For Butler identity should then be understood as an effect of regulated social practices in which the body actively participates.
In the 1970s British artist Helen Chadwick was already discussing through her highly hybrid work the ways in which the female body is experienced as inherently performative, thus questioning traditional visual representations of women as much as the dominant humanist concepts of a pre-determined identity. Before Chadwick, in the 1920s and in France, another woman artist, Claude Cahun, created a series of carefully choreographed photographs in which the artist, cross-dressing and masquerading, disrupted the fiction of a stable self and proposed, instead, a sexually liminal and performative being.
These examples seem therefore to suggest that women in general and women artists in particular have a special stake in embracing the notion of the performative body and figuring a fluid gender identity.

Several cultural discourses have always been eager to emphasise female’s fleshiness, perceived as... more Several cultural discourses have always been eager to emphasise female’s fleshiness, perceived as that which binds women to abjection and the monstrous and a mark of women’s inherent sinful nature. Psychoanalysis has also contributed to this grand narrative by stressing the danger to a distinct self of the alluring and feared maternal body. Such socio-cultural positions have limited women’s participation in different spheres of action, from the political to the spiritual and to artistic creation and expression, and have frequently been a source of anxiety to women. They have thus become a central issue in both feminist discourse and women’s artistic praxis. This paper takes as its starting point the traditional connection of women to abjection and the monstrous and seeks to find in contemporary women visual artists and writers the reworking of such themes. From Helen Chadwick’s and Michèle Roberts’ monstrous births to Jeanette Winterson’s and Paula Rego’s ‘Dog Women’, a connection should be established between these artists, who often create visual or literary objects populated with animal-like women, grotesque mothers and hideous births and who embrace the female abject as a source of radical power and as an image of transgressive resistance

The domestic sphere, traditionally being the space women were allocated to and where they could d... more The domestic sphere, traditionally being the space women were allocated to and where they could develop their work, has been the focus of an ongoing attention by women artists and women writers. This private space has also been an essential topic for discussion by feminist critics, who have been determined to expose and reject the obligations and routine of the domestic life, which in modern times still seems to entrap women. However, for artists, writers and critics alike the domestic carries an ambivalent status, as it may also be perceived as the place where female creativity can truly be found and explored, given that an art produced by women (and often for women) has been created side-by-side with the fulfilment of domestic tasks and has been partly shaped by them. Thus, the private and the domestic have been understood as women’s loci of oppression and segregation, as much as of personal affirmation, aesthetic creativity and social power.
In this paper I take the previous critical background as my starting point in order to discuss contemporary accounts of domesticity in women’s fiction and art. I will focus on several women artists and writers who have been creating their work after the important changes of the 1960s and 1970s, especially in relation to women’s conquest of a public sphere and a public voice. My aim is to analyse how these artists, influenced by the social transformations of the last fifty years regarding gender-roles and gender definitions, are interested in the domestic world, even though their responses are not the same.

After participating in the 2005 Venice Biennale’s exhibition Always a Little bit Further, Joana V... more After participating in the 2005 Venice Biennale’s exhibition Always a Little bit Further, Joana Vasconcelos has climbed up the ladder of the art world’s fame. In what was the first edition of La Biennale curated by two women (Rosa Martínez and fellow Spaniard María de Corral), a work by Vasconcelos occupied the centre of a room where one could also see several Guerrilla Girls’ posters. A Noiva, 2001 (The Bride) was a giant chandelier made of thousands of small white tampons, a feminine everyday staple transformed into a decorative object. The tampons appeared as useless objects, their practical essence converted in aesthetic content. Moreover, the tampon jumped out of a life of secrecy to the spotlight of public exhibition, from the inside of women’s bodies to the outer world of contemporary art. It looked really promising in terms of feminist substrate and the dialogue it initiated with feminist art history. Memory and identity was then identified as one of Vasconcelos’ main approaches to art, also given the way she recuperates Portuguese traditions and ways of doing with a post-modern twist: one can look at works from the same period, such as Coração Independente Vermelho, 2005, quoting Portuguese filigree, or Donzela, 2007, a piece built with handmade crochet. The fact is that the artist has had several blockbuster exhibitions in renowned places such as Palácio Nacional da Ajuda (Lisbon, 2013) and Chatêaux Versailles (Paris, 2013). In 2013 she went back to Venice, with a boat: the all-encompassing project Trafaria Praia was the Portuguese official representation to the 55th Biennale di Venezia – it was a boat, an exhibiting space covered with traditional Portuguese tiles and also, yes, a shop, where you could buy all sorts of memorabilia.
Focusing on Joana Vasconcelos’ work, and analysing it’s insertion within the art market and the exhibitions circuits of contemporary art, we intend to draw a wider reflection on the contemporary re-uses of feminist artistic processes (as knitting, crochet and assemblage and materials such as pans, pots, brooms and tampons) that were once highly politically charged. This trans-historical approach can produce an ethical and critical dilemma and can be productively compared to the 1960s and 1970s; this was an earlier moment also marked by an appropriation of the processes developed by the historical avant-garde, which were thus rendered political. We intend to consider these methods as forming an archive that is now being re-used and appropriated by women artists such as Vasconcelos in a very problematic way in what feminist art and its effects are concerned.
Thus we intend to reflect on the difficult and unresolved tension between feminist artistic practices, institutions, the art market and political establishment that this artist and these particular exhibitions raise. More specifically we will address the following questions:
- Is there a critical point present in these works often seen and presented as feminist? Where do they stand in terms of issues such as representation, desire, sexuality and domination? What are the implications for feminist art of the commodification of the word ‘feminist’? Has feminist art become a staple losing ground as political and critical engagement by being de-historicized and de-contextualized?
- Is a critical point even possible when the artist as individual – it’s persona – seems to take precedence over the work and the individual supersedes the collective?
- Does such an artistic standpoint that colludes with the political establishment question power relations or does it instead consolidate them?

New Perspectives in Diasporic Experience, 2014

In ‘Who Needs “Identity”?’ Stuart Hall concludes that ‘identities are never unified . . . never s... more In ‘Who Needs “Identity”?’ Stuart Hall concludes that ‘identities are never unified . . . never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices and positions.’ According to Hall, then, identity needs to be thought of as a production, which is never complete, but always in process. A processual notion of identity has been central to the development of Diaspora studies, as indeed Homi Bhabha’s emphasis on postcolonial subjects as placed within ‘a cultural hybridity that entertains difference.’ Also important is the suggestion of cultural identity as constructed in and through representation, which, at the same time, can be part of ‘those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences.’ Cultural representations should thus be understood as hybrid forms, embedded with differing points of view on the world. Framed by the previous theoretical debate, in this chapter I intend to analyse contemporary visual artwork by Aurore de Sousa, a Portuguese-French artist, within the context of her migrant experience, in order to discuss the effects of that dissemination in the visual construction of a fluid and plural sense of identity. I argue that the intercultural space which this woman inhabits has led her to the questioning of the opposite terms identity and difference, location and dislocation, home and foreign, past and present. Moreover, I also want to put forward the notion of a gendered Diaspora by looking at what, in the works under consideration, is influenced by an experience lived in the feminine. In particular, I will look at the way this artist conflates motherland with the mother’s body and tries to re-establish a maternal genealogy.

Helena Almeida (1934-2018) is one of the most interesting and relevant artists in Portuguese cont... more Helena Almeida (1934-2018) is one of the most interesting and relevant artists in Portuguese contemporary art, having produced an oeuvre of great integrity and consistency, in which the body of the artist and processes of self-representation (always in an ambivalent, subversive and transgressive relation with that same art tradition) took centre stage. Taking the work Family portrait (1979) as its starting point, this article will explore the relation Almeida had with the familiar, be it in personal, artistic or national terms, as all these dimensions of the concept cannot be dissociated from each other when we look at this artist’s oeuvre.

Um agradecimento especial à Prof. Dr" Ana Luísa Amaral, por me ter sempre acompanhado ao longo de... more Um agradecimento especial à Prof. Dr" Ana Luísa Amaral, por me ter sempre acompanhado ao longo de um percurso feito de dúvidas e de certezas, pelas apreciações críticas rigorosas e pelo interesse contínuo. Ainda os meus agradecimentos por ter revelado a poesia de Emily Dickinson nos seminários de mestrado; sem essa dádiva inicial, este trabalho não teria sido possível. Uma palavra de apreço ao Dr José Araújo Lima, pelas informações valiosas que forneceu e pelo interesse e tempo que, amavelmente, disponibilizou. Aos Profs. Drs Carlos Azevedo, Rui Carvalho Homem e Teresa Castilho, pelo contributo que deram para a realização desta dissertação nos seus seminários de mestrado. As reflexões sobre Literatura e Cultura Americanas, Poesia ou Teoria da Literatura preencheram lacunas e despertaram a vontade de aprofundar outras áreas de estudo.

for their warm welcome and contagious enthusiasm for Chadwick's work. In Autumn 2005 I eagerly we... more for their warm welcome and contagious enthusiasm for Chadwick's work. In Autumn 2005 I eagerly went to Stockholm, where a retrospective exhibition of Chadwick's work was taking place at Liljevalchs konsthall. My thanks go to Bo Nilsson, for his helpfulness during this visit, as well as for his insights into Chadwick's work. I also wish to express my gratitude to Anne Livion-Ingvarsson, who graciously agreed to meet me and discuss feminism and art in the Swedish context. Last but no least, my warmest thanks go to family and friends, who have generously given their love, support and understanding. In particular, I want to lovingly thank my parents, my children, Daniel and Helena, for giving me the opportunity to experience, first hand, motherhood as a contaminated form of being in the world, and Graeme, for his IT skills and ever-present love. This thesis is dedicated to them. I want to acknowledge the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia for awarding me a doctorate grant, which allowed me to undertake my research abroad, attend conferences and seminars and dedicate so much of my time and effort to this project. v

The Explicator, 2002

... The fairy tales of The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pome-granates reveal many ... more ... The fairy tales of The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pome-granates reveal many influences-Hans Christian Andersen, Blake, Carlyle-but ... of the fairy tales, Wilde's concern is exactly that of Pater in Mar-ius-to blend Christianity and the artistic life or aestheticism. ...

Catalogue to the exhibition 'Identities in Transit: Portuguese Women Artists since 1950, Taylor I... more Catalogue to the exhibition 'Identities in Transit: Portuguese Women Artists since 1950, Taylor Institute, University of Oxford, 10-24 March 2017. Co-written with Claudia Pazos-Alonso (University of Oxford)

Abstract: This article examines the work of Joana Vasconcelos in relation to feminist debates abo... more Abstract: This article examines the work of Joana Vasconcelos in relation to feminist debates about craft and the role of the artist in relation to her participants/cultural producers. It introduces the work of Carla Cruz's project RASTIHLO and Maria Nepomuceno's Tempo para Respirar (Breathing Time) as providing alternative strategies for co-operative working which rely on skill-sharing and mutually affirming approaches to working with participants in the production of artworks and projects. The political question of appropriation and promotion of individual identity in an international marketplace is at the heart of the feminist debates discussed.

In 1998 Portuguese artist Susana Mendes Silva attended a workshop in Sarajevo, shortly after the ... more In 1998 Portuguese artist Susana Mendes Silva attended a workshop in Sarajevo, shortly after the end of the Bosnian War (1992-95) and when the physical and psychological scars were still very much alive throughout the city. This paper analyses the two projects – Delicatesse and Untitled (Sarajevo) (1999) ¬– that resulted from Mendes Silva’s residency in Sarajevo. These explore the visible signs and resonances of an incredibly mediatised war through visual representations that are simultaneously suggestive of an intimate and domestic existence. In so doing, Mendes Silva’s work suggests warfare as a very public and political event that, nevertheless, is implicated in the private sphere and, as a result, experienced, negotiated and overcome at the level of the personal. Moreover, since attention is centred on activities and spaces traditionally associated with a feminine condition, the works reflect on the role played by women as historical social agents and the importance of gender in our understanding of war.

In ‘Who Needs “Identity”?’ Stuart Hall concludes that ‘identities are never unified . . . never s... more In ‘Who Needs “Identity”?’ Stuart Hall concludes that ‘identities are never unified . . . never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices and positions.’ According to Hall, then, identity needs to be thought of as a production, which is never complete, but always in process. A processual notion of identity has been central to the development of Diaspora studies, as indeed Homi Bhabha’s emphasis on postcolonial subjects as placed within ‘a cultural hybridity that entertains difference.’ Also important is the suggestion of cultural identity as constructed in and through representation, which, at the same time, can be part of ‘those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences.’ Cultural representations should thus be understood as hybrid forms, embedded with differing points of view on the world. Framed by the previous theoretical debate, in this chapter I intend to analyse contemporary visual artwork by Aurore de Sousa, a Portuguese-French artist, within the context of her migrant experience, in order to discuss the effects of that dissemination in the visual construction of a fluid and plural sense of identity. I argue that the intercultural space which this woman inhabits has led her to the questioning of the opposite terms identity and difference, location and dislocation, home and foreign, past and present. Moreover, I also want to put forward the notion of a gendered Diaspora by looking at what, in the works under consideration, is influenced by an experience lived in the feminine. In particular, I will look at the way this artist conflates motherland with the mother’s body and tries to re-establish a maternal genealogy.

In “The Laugh of the Medusa” French feminist Hélène Cixous defends that flying (‘voler’) is the g... more In “The Laugh of the Medusa” French feminist Hélène Cixous defends that flying (‘voler’) is the gesture of all women. Given that the word ‘voler’ means ‘to steal’ as well as ‘to fly’, Cixous emphasises a woman’s intention to spoil the order of space, changing the value or the connotations of the female body and turning its relevance upside down. However, if woman is not only a bird but also a thief, there is danger or risk involved in her actions and the possibility of failure.
In The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity, Mary Russo replaces Bakhtin’s emphasis on the production of an earthly grotesque, which, according to her, leaves a static and universalistic notion of the feminine securely in place, with a female grotesque “up there” and “out there”, so as to introduce a principle of turbulence, or uncertainty, into the configuration female/ grotesque. Similarly to Cixous, Russo’s aerialist performer creates a model for female subversion in which liberation, risk and failure are equally present.
Taking as a starting point the dual notion of women as fliers/ thieves and its implications, this paper discusses the presence of female aerial performers in the work of several contemporary women artists and writers as evidence of their complex relationship with a dominant and masculine art tradition.

Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, 2011

Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, 2011

In this paper we focus on the paths of two Portuguese women artists who are exemplars of the sign... more In this paper we focus on the paths of two Portuguese women artists who are exemplars of the significant turn in the Portuguese artistic context that occurred around the 1960s. Lourdes Castro and Helena Almeida were two of the first artists to leave Portugal and seek for a contact outside the politically and culturally asphyxiated country since the modernist generation had made its way in the Parisian ground earlier in the century. This is particularly relevant in the sense that these two artists’ ‘encounter with the world’ marks a definite breakthrough regarding Portuguese women artists’ role in the contemporary visual art scene.

In the 1990s, Judith Butler published a serious of groundbreaking texts where she explored the id... more In the 1990s, Judith Butler published a serious of groundbreaking texts where she explored the idea of the performativity of gender and the body. According to this critic gender attributes are not expressive but performative, which means that “there is no preexisting identity by which an act or attribute might be measured . . . and the postulation of a true gender identity would be revealed as a regulatory fiction” (1990:180). For Butler identity should then be understood as an effect of regulated social practices in which the body actively participates.
In the 1970s British artist Helen Chadwick was already discussing through her highly hybrid work the ways in which the female body is experienced as inherently performative, thus questioning traditional visual representations of women as much as the dominant humanist concepts of a pre-determined identity. Before Chadwick, in the 1920s and in France, another woman artist, Claude Cahun, created a series of carefully choreographed photographs in which the artist, cross-dressing and masquerading, disrupted the fiction of a stable self and proposed, instead, a sexually liminal and performative being.
These examples seem therefore to suggest that women in general and women artists in particular have a special stake in embracing the notion of the performative body and figuring a fluid gender identity.

Several cultural discourses have always been eager to emphasise female’s fleshiness, perceived as... more Several cultural discourses have always been eager to emphasise female’s fleshiness, perceived as that which binds women to abjection and the monstrous and a mark of women’s inherent sinful nature. Psychoanalysis has also contributed to this grand narrative by stressing the danger to a distinct self of the alluring and feared maternal body. Such socio-cultural positions have limited women’s participation in different spheres of action, from the political to the spiritual and to artistic creation and expression, and have frequently been a source of anxiety to women. They have thus become a central issue in both feminist discourse and women’s artistic praxis. This paper takes as its starting point the traditional connection of women to abjection and the monstrous and seeks to find in contemporary women visual artists and writers the reworking of such themes. From Helen Chadwick’s and Michèle Roberts’ monstrous births to Jeanette Winterson’s and Paula Rego’s ‘Dog Women’, a connection should be established between these artists, who often create visual or literary objects populated with animal-like women, grotesque mothers and hideous births and who embrace the female abject as a source of radical power and as an image of transgressive resistance

The domestic sphere, traditionally being the space women were allocated to and where they could d... more The domestic sphere, traditionally being the space women were allocated to and where they could develop their work, has been the focus of an ongoing attention by women artists and women writers. This private space has also been an essential topic for discussion by feminist critics, who have been determined to expose and reject the obligations and routine of the domestic life, which in modern times still seems to entrap women. However, for artists, writers and critics alike the domestic carries an ambivalent status, as it may also be perceived as the place where female creativity can truly be found and explored, given that an art produced by women (and often for women) has been created side-by-side with the fulfilment of domestic tasks and has been partly shaped by them. Thus, the private and the domestic have been understood as women’s loci of oppression and segregation, as much as of personal affirmation, aesthetic creativity and social power.
In this paper I take the previous critical background as my starting point in order to discuss contemporary accounts of domesticity in women’s fiction and art. I will focus on several women artists and writers who have been creating their work after the important changes of the 1960s and 1970s, especially in relation to women’s conquest of a public sphere and a public voice. My aim is to analyse how these artists, influenced by the social transformations of the last fifty years regarding gender-roles and gender definitions, are interested in the domestic world, even though their responses are not the same.

After participating in the 2005 Venice Biennale’s exhibition Always a Little bit Further, Joana V... more After participating in the 2005 Venice Biennale’s exhibition Always a Little bit Further, Joana Vasconcelos has climbed up the ladder of the art world’s fame. In what was the first edition of La Biennale curated by two women (Rosa Martínez and fellow Spaniard María de Corral), a work by Vasconcelos occupied the centre of a room where one could also see several Guerrilla Girls’ posters. A Noiva, 2001 (The Bride) was a giant chandelier made of thousands of small white tampons, a feminine everyday staple transformed into a decorative object. The tampons appeared as useless objects, their practical essence converted in aesthetic content. Moreover, the tampon jumped out of a life of secrecy to the spotlight of public exhibition, from the inside of women’s bodies to the outer world of contemporary art. It looked really promising in terms of feminist substrate and the dialogue it initiated with feminist art history. Memory and identity was then identified as one of Vasconcelos’ main approaches to art, also given the way she recuperates Portuguese traditions and ways of doing with a post-modern twist: one can look at works from the same period, such as Coração Independente Vermelho, 2005, quoting Portuguese filigree, or Donzela, 2007, a piece built with handmade crochet. The fact is that the artist has had several blockbuster exhibitions in renowned places such as Palácio Nacional da Ajuda (Lisbon, 2013) and Chatêaux Versailles (Paris, 2013). In 2013 she went back to Venice, with a boat: the all-encompassing project Trafaria Praia was the Portuguese official representation to the 55th Biennale di Venezia – it was a boat, an exhibiting space covered with traditional Portuguese tiles and also, yes, a shop, where you could buy all sorts of memorabilia.
Focusing on Joana Vasconcelos’ work, and analysing it’s insertion within the art market and the exhibitions circuits of contemporary art, we intend to draw a wider reflection on the contemporary re-uses of feminist artistic processes (as knitting, crochet and assemblage and materials such as pans, pots, brooms and tampons) that were once highly politically charged. This trans-historical approach can produce an ethical and critical dilemma and can be productively compared to the 1960s and 1970s; this was an earlier moment also marked by an appropriation of the processes developed by the historical avant-garde, which were thus rendered political. We intend to consider these methods as forming an archive that is now being re-used and appropriated by women artists such as Vasconcelos in a very problematic way in what feminist art and its effects are concerned.
Thus we intend to reflect on the difficult and unresolved tension between feminist artistic practices, institutions, the art market and political establishment that this artist and these particular exhibitions raise. More specifically we will address the following questions:
- Is there a critical point present in these works often seen and presented as feminist? Where do they stand in terms of issues such as representation, desire, sexuality and domination? What are the implications for feminist art of the commodification of the word ‘feminist’? Has feminist art become a staple losing ground as political and critical engagement by being de-historicized and de-contextualized?
- Is a critical point even possible when the artist as individual – it’s persona – seems to take precedence over the work and the individual supersedes the collective?
- Does such an artistic standpoint that colludes with the political establishment question power relations or does it instead consolidate them?

Feminine Singular: Women Growing up through Life-writing in the Luso-Hispanic World, 2017

Since 1969, Helena Almeida has placed her own body in the centre of the artwork, creating an unus... more Since 1969, Helena Almeida has placed her own body in the centre of the artwork, creating an unusual continuum between the body of the work and the body of the artist. Focused on the female body and, more specifically, on the body of the woman artist, Almeida’s work suggests feminist concerns and approaches, but her pared-down, quasi-abstract art also seems to defy gendered and cultural readings. Hence, not only does she occupy an original, ex-centric position within the self-portrait tradition, but she also poses a challenge to a feminist analysis: how is it possible to discuss her process of self-representation in historical, cultural, gender and subjective terms if that process systematically denies personal revelation? It is this challenge that I wish to take up in this chapter, in order to go beyond the genderless interpretation dominating the critical discussion of Almeida’s work and find in it a gendered way of looking at things.

Taking a transcultural and interdisciplinary approach to Diaspora studies, New Perspectives in Di... more Taking a transcultural and interdisciplinary approach to Diaspora studies, New Perspectives in Diasporic Experience offers a wide range of new and challenging perspectives on Diaspora and confirms the relevance of this field to the discussion of contemporary forms of identity construction, movement, settlement, membership and collective identification. This volume investigates constructions of diasporic identity from a variety of temporal and spatial contexts. They explore encounters between diasporic communities and host societies, and examine how diasporic experiences can contribute to perpetuating or challenging normalised perceptions of the Other. The authors discuss how visual and literary representations become an integral part of diasporic experiences and identities. Other themes examined include communities’ attempts to reverse the negative effects of Diaspora and maintain cultural continuity, as well as generational differences and dialogue within the Diaspora, and the power that individuals have to negotiate marginal identities in diasporic settings.

Poetry from Mozambique translated into English