Las Iluministas is a feminist art project I founded in 2020 with psychologist, doula and activist Alicia Salgado. We responded to a call from the Centre for Applied Human Rights (York, UK) which invited proposals from artist-activist collaborations from around the world to document the unfolding Covid-19 crisis. Through Las Iluministas, we wanted to provide a space for feminist artists and activists in Mexico to respond to the pandemic from their own perspectives and lived experiences. We were overwhelmed with the response. We exhibited over 100 pieces of art in our online exhibition, and produced a (free to download) colouring book with twenty images from the exhibition. These are still available on our website.
Inspired and enthused by the success of the first open call, in 2021 we collaborated with feminist curator Michaela Wetherell of Pink-Collar Gallery, to create an international open call that asks artists to change the narrative on femicide in Mexico and the UK. We wanted artists to re:imagine, re:name, re:tell stories of femicide in a way which empowers women and places blame where it needs to be – on aggressors, not on victims. We ran two online exhibitions, commissioned ten pieces of public art (five in the UK, five in Mexico), and created ten short videos documenting these commissions. RE:Imagine was funded by Arts Council UK, the University of York, the University of Durham, and Tees Valley Arts.
We are currently seeking funding for our second collaboration with Pink-Collar Gallery, Labour and Love.
Gendered inequalities in paid work and in unpaid care work are a global challenge that seriously impacts upon the lives, health and opportunities of individuals, families and communities across the world every day. Women everywhere fare worse than men in terms of earnings, professional status, and experience of gendered and sexual violence in the workplace. Much of this inequality in paid work is intricately linked to women’s unequal unpaid care responsibilities, which remain under-recognised and undervalued, even after the Covid-19 pandemic for a while made these harder to ignore. Women’s race, ethnicity, dis/ability, sexuality and age all compound these inequalities. These are not isolated problems; global chains of exploitation leave women and girls in the Global South in more disadvantaged positions in more disadvantaged economies than those in the Global North. But the rising cost of living and challenges to accessing decent employment and childcare in the UK mean women and girls are struggling to survive here, too.
In ‘Labour and Love’, we want to use activist art in public spaces in the UK and Mexico to inspire action through art by generating awareness and empathy, and more than that, a new way of seeing these ingrained inequalities, and therefore, a way of imagining new possibilities. We will invite artists to propose public art which deals with how gendered inequalities in paid or unpaid labour impact on people’s lives, relationships, hopes and opportunities. How would things be different, if caregiving was stress free? If communities were supported to find fulfilling work they were passionate about? If love, not necessity and survival, could guide our choices about the labour we do?
We will commission a total of six pieces of public art to be made in the UK and Mexico (three in Mexico, three in the UK). Four emerging artists/collectives will be selected via an open call launched simultaneously in the UK and Mexico. They will be paid to produce their commissioned work in their home country (either UK or Mexico). One ‘invited artist’ will be pre-selected and asked to produce public art in Mexico and the UK, as well as committing to other activities. Following the formula used in our previous collaborative project RE: imagine, proposals of a high quality that are not selected for the commission will be displayed in parallel digital exhibitions.
Tallulah Lines: Feminist Art + Research 