Running&head:&PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS&&1& Planning for Public Participation and Community Engagement in Contemporary Feminist Art Programs Roya C. Amirsoleymani University of Oregon PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 2& Approved by University of Oregon Arts and Administration Program _________________________________________ Dr. Phaedra Livingstone, Advisor ___________________ Date PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 3& Acknowledgements I wish to extend immeasurable gratitude to the following individuals who have supported me in my professional and academic endeavors leading to this point: To my research advisor, Dr. Phaedra Livingstone, without whom this project would not have been possible, especially coupled with my full-time career. Her own feminist scholarship and inquiry in the field are an inspiration. To the Arts and Administration Program faculty and staff, including Dr. Doug Blandy, who advised me in the early stages of my research; Dr. John Fenn, whose academic advising, teaching, and resources informed this project’s exploration of digital and online media; and Tina Rinaldi, who ardently supported the project’s feminist focus and values. To my academic and professional mentors, colleagues, and friends from the last several years, to whom I still turn for guidance and example: Dr. Kelly Hankin, Dr. Julie Townsend, Dr. Jennifer Nelson, Natalie Young Williams, Alisa Roadcup, and Chloe Hanson Hebert. To my colleagues at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), where I interned and then began my full-time position during the course of this project, and from whom I have learned far more than a master’s degree could ever teach and had immense fun doing it. Special thanks to Erin Boberg Doughton, Kristan Kennedy, Angela Mattox, Patrick Leonard, and Victoria Frey. To the circle of friends who helped me make the most of my graduate school years. To my always loving and supportive parents, sister, extended family, and closest friends. To my partner, Nicholas Raethke. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 4& Table of Contents Introduction 6 Problem Statement 7 Research Approach & Strategy of Inquiry 9 Literature Review 11 Case Analysis: Feminism & Co. 16 Case Analysis: The Way That We Rhyme 22 Conclusions (Implications for the Future of Feminist Art) 27 Appendix A: Sample Recruitment Email 33 Appendix B: Sample Verbal/Phone Recruitment Script 34 Appendix C: Sample Consent Form 35 Appendix D: Sample Research Instrument – Document Analysis 38 Appendix E: Sample Research Instrument – Case Analysis Interview 39 PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 5& Abstract The arts administration field severely lacks the contribution of feminist critique as well as its own disciplinary research specific to feminist art. This project seeks to help address that gap through descriptive research by 1) describing the public participation and community engagement activities of two active, US-based contemporary feminist art programs; 2) reading these programs’ public participation and community engagement strategies vis à vis new research on emergent trends in arts participation; and 3) assessing potential impact of that research on current or future programs that seek to advance art and feminism. Research methods include a literature review in feminist art theory, history of US feminist art programs, and recent research in arts participation and engagement, as well as two case analyses of current feminist art programs, employing both interviews and document analysis. Keywords: feminist art, feminist art programs, arts participation, arts engagement, community engagement, public participation, public programs PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 6& Introduction As a feminist arts administrator, I am struck by a dearth of feminist critique in the scholarly and professional fields of arts management. This project seeks to address that gap by exploring and describing how feminist arts exhibition programs incorporate public participation and community engagement experiences into their programming, and how such program elements intersect with and are reflected in emerging arts participation research, theory, and practice. In other words, I will read both past and current incarnations of public participation and community engagement in feminist art programs through the lens of arts participation, thus making space in the arts management field for the specificity of feminist arts programming. Using primary source document analysis and interviews, I have conducted case analyses of two programs in particular, looking specifically at how their curators design and plan for public participation and community engagement, and how these embody longstanding methods, strategies, and values common to feminist art programs. The case analyses and larger project are guided by the following key questions: a) How are current feminist art programs designing and planning for public participation and community engagement, and how are these similar to or different from feminist art programs of the recent past? b) New research in the arts and culture sector signals significant philosophical, programmatic, and philanthropic shifts in participation, engagement, and community in the arts; what are the implications for feminist art programs, especially given the fundamental role of participation and engagement in feminist artistic practice and programming, both past and present? c) How can current feminist art programs leverage this new research to support their own sustainability and enhancement, and the future of feminism? By examining the intersection of historical and current feminist art programs’ public participation and community engagement practices with those currently put forth by the arts management field, I aim to develop an analysis of findings that can serve existing feminist art programs’ capacity building and strategy and dually position feminist art programs in an arts management context while examining questions of arts administration through a feminist lens. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 7& Problem Statement A 1989 poster produced by the Guerrilla Girls, a feminist activist art group, revealed that only 5% of the artists represented in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Modern Art collections were women. In a recent interview with some of the group’s members, Christopher Bollen (2012) highlights their most recent findings, including the fact that this statistic had actually decreased by a full percentage point (now only 4% women). Other recent reports reveal the persistence of gender disparity in the arts that disproportionately favors men, as Maura Reilly (2007) makes clear in her laundry list of current gender-based inequalities in the visual arts: …women have never been, nor are they yet, treated on a par with white men. With the Turner Prize…the ratio of female to male recipients was 2 to 19…it was only as recently as 1986 that the most widely used [art history textbook], H.W. Janson’s History of Art, first corrected its omission by adding 19 women artists out of 2,300… the monetary value of [women’s] work is far lower than men’s…[w]omen are also often excluded from exhibitions within which one would think they would play major roles, and women curators are rarely invited to organize the more prestigious international exhibitions. The Venice Biennale of 2005…was the first one in the 110-year history of the Biennale to be organized by women…[i]n the fifty year history of Documenta…only once has a woman been asked to organize the exhibition…it must be acknowledged that it is far worse for women of color and/or of non-Euro-American descent. (pp. 18-19) In her essay about elles@centrepompidou, the Musée nationale d’art moderne’s (Paris) re-hang of its entire collection that exclusively exhibited women artists, Camille Morineau (2009) draws attention to the severe gender inequality made visible: “In May 2009, the display of the collections of the Musée national d’art modern will be 100% by women, although in fact they only comprise 18% of our collections and 25% of our contemporary collections.” (p. 15). Similarly, Katy Deepwell (2010) finds that “[i]n most of the world’s democracies, women artists are 40-50% of the population of female artists, even if their representation on the walls of museums is, on average, 20%.” (p. 10) Paired with a view that considers feminist concerns “timeless” or always relevant (Pollack, 1988) and inseparable from race-, class-, and sexuality-based social injustice issues (hooks, 1986), these startling statistics support the assessment that feminist art programs are of enduring value and imperative importance. Beyond highlighting internal art world injustices such as those described above, effective feminist art programs continue to reveal and respond to persistent patriarchal structures and identity politics through arts and culture, promoting participation, engagement, dialogue, and direct action among diverse publics, and seeking to PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 8& cultivate, sustain, and document complex and collective dialogues, actions, and creative projects—both place-based and digital—of artists and publics using or responding to art to engage with questions, issues, images, and events that demand feminist attention or action. Feminist art programs also respond to, preserve, and share the legacy and heritage of feminist art. Alex Juhasz (2001) wonders whether feminist media history will be forgotten, removed, or disappeared, not unlike the radical feminist movement: “I find a recurring cycle of feminist knowledge and action: feminists exist and are forgotten, make their work and see it disappear, are remembered and get lost, are rediscovered, erased, and re-represented again.” Juhasz’s concerns account for some of the very reasons certain types of feminist art programs still matter. Once a temporary feminist exhibition at a small nonprofit arts center, or even at a high-profile museum, has passed, the project is often relegated to curatorial and theoretical ghettos, stored in academic libraries or written about in obscure journals; at worst, they are temporarily forgotten, seemingly erased from history. Many feminists today recall their own feminist art experiences rife with de-funding and shuttering of projects, programs, and spaces. As such, current and future feminist art programs can creatively respond to threats to feminist histories. They can fund research or residencies for feminist artists or collectives; organize, mount, and promote feminist art and media exhibitions, productions, festivals, or performances; document, archive, and preserve objects and ephemera; design feminist art curricula for museums or schools; and plan experiences that engage diverse publics in thinking about and acting on feminist concerns through dynamic participation in and through art. But as Juhasz reminds us, we need to take account of our feminist present: where are our programs now? Where will they be tomorrow? Where have others gone to pass? Which serve as examples, histories, or inspirations? What does it all look like on the ground, relative to the arts and culture sector? If feminist art programs are integral to critical thinking, creative practice, and community building—as they are if we understand feminism to be inseparable from social justice work—then we need to strategize not just for their survival but their flourishing. Given the enduring need for and significance of feminist art programs, it is critical that the arts and culture sector recognize and reward that value, and that feminist art programs position themselves for securing resources to meet organizational and programmatic goals in a feminist capacity, whether for start-up, sustenance, expansion, enhancement, or diversification. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 9& Research Approach & Strategy of Inquiry This project utilizes two core research strategies: a literature review of a) feminist art programs from the early 1970s to present, and b) recent arts management research on participation and engagement, as well as two case analyses of feminist art programs. For case analyses, I narrowed eligible programs to those located in the United States; of nonprofit status; self-identified as feminist; related to visual art or media exhibitions; inclusive of public- or community-oriented elements; and current or less than five years old at the time of data collection. Research instruments were designed for coding, note-taking, and detailed descriptions of document or interview context (see sample research instruments in Appendix). Primary source documents included marketing and promotional materials; curatorial/program descriptions; conference papers; and program websites/online media. In this final report, case analyses focus on the exhibition The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art, & Politics (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 2008) and the public program Feminism & Co. (Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, ongoing). I seek to embody a feminist research approach as identified by Thompson (1995), who describes it as a “politicized inquiry and…explicitly ideological”, and by Cook & Fonow (1986) as “change-oriented.” Acker, Barry, and Essevelt (1983) state that “feminist researchers share the values of overcoming oppression, empowering women, and transforming society…” (all cited in Small, 1995, p. 947). Broadly, the project strives to contribute to a politicized discourse promoting feminist values in the cultural sector. A qualitative study is critical to my position that there are multiple definitions and meanings of feminism, feminist art, publics, participation, and communities. Krauss (2005) provides a rich description of the relationships between qualitative research and meaning: Qualitative research has the unique goal of facilitating the meaning-making process…Erikson (1963) elaborated on the importance of meaning when he broke it down into two sub-categories: common meanings and unique meanings. What has a common meaning to a group of people may have a unique meaning to an individual member of the group…[t]his is the unique work of qualitative research and data analysis in particular – to identify the contributors to an individual’s (or group’s) unique meaning. (p. 763) Krauss’ concept of “meaning-making” informs the project in that participants’ “unique meanings” of terms shape interpretation of data and conclusions, an aspect most apparent in the projects’ case analyses, which employ document analysis and interviews as data collection PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 10& methods. As researcher, I assume that this project’s author, readers, case analysis subjects, and interviewees will not define fluid concepts such as feminist art identically. As such, I am working with the following understandings of key terms as they serve the project’s goals: Feminist Art: While art informed by feminism(s) is more inclusive, this project engages with the legacy of a cohesive feminist art movement and its stated values, and thus calls for a more coherent definition such as that put forth by Katy Deepwell (2010), who describes feminist art as inherently political; uncontained by a specific medium; shaped by and respondent to the actions and concerns of the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and shifts in contemporary art practices of the same era; generative of collaborative and collective working methods; critical of representation and its politics; and as internationally current and continuous. Feminist art programs: Here, I refer to Deepwell’s (2006) notion of feminist curation, described as designing an exhibition of feminist or women’s art with the aim of challenging “existing bodies of knowledge” (p. 66). Deepwell also draws distinctions among “women’s art; the work of all women artists; and feminist perspectives in art history, curation, and art criticism” (p. 68). Public Participation: Refers to a general public comprised of anyone who encounters a project, program, or artwork—in other words, everyone in the room. Paul O’Neill (2010) describes participation as a “art’s ability to engage with its publics as collaborators, co-producers or other active agents,” and through more nuanced consideration, as “a flexible term for variant modes of engagement with art…not only as a form of co-production but also as an end product in itself, which provides art with its durational and public dimension” (p. 10). Museum administrator Nina Simon (2010) explains public participation as the creation, sharing, and connecting around content by a program’s publics, privileging their contributions and co-creations and emphasizing collaborations between “experts” and “non-experts” in generating content and meaning. Community Engagement: In contrast to public as described above, community can be defined as a specific group of individuals with a shared cultural commonality (e.g., identity, geography, values). Here, community engagement refers to a programming practice as defined by Doug Borwick (2012): “a process whereby institutions enter into mutually beneficial relationships with other organizations, informal community groups, or individuals.” (p. 14) PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 11& Literature Review In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several feminist art critics, theorists, and historians, including Gouma-Peterson & Mathews (1987), Pollack (1988), and Lippard (1992), began tracing and elucidating the history of feminist interventions into the modernist discipline of art history and the gender politics of the art world. These historians and critics recount and respond to the height of the feminist art and activist movements of the 1970s as well as varied denouncements of them in the 1980s, including accusations by lesbians and women of color of racism, classism, and homophobia in mainstream feminist and art movements. By producing comprehensive accounts of complementary and conflicting feminist art criticisms and theories and drawing connections to identity politics in the art world, these early chroniclers of feminist art histories helped define and describe major themes and debates in feminist art while laying the groundwork for its theoretical and practical futures. In turn, by spotlighting persistent gender disparity in art’s academic and professional realms, they made a case for the continued need for feminist inquiries and interventions into art and space for later historical, theoretical, critical, analytical, and evaluative writings that identify and describe particular qualities of feminist art exhibitions and programming, which I will exemplify in what follows, then draw connections to arts management literature on participation and engagement. What Makes a Feminist Art Program Feminist? Public Participation and Community Engagement as Common Threads. From the following review of literature on feminist art programs active at any point from the 1970s to early 2000s, I have discerned several shared organizational and administrative aspects, specifically methods and strategies for public participation and community engagement, and consider how they might be carried out in contemporary contexts. While the examples I have encountered differ geographically, temporally, culturally, and disciplinarily, they fit the criteria of nonprofit or independent programs centered on art exhibition and presenting, self-identified as feminist, and based in the US (with the exception of one program in Toronto). Given the span of time, I am looking at both programs established in the early era of feminist art, when the movement was just being formalized, through current or recent programs that both share and depart from earlier, legacy programs. The following are specific participatory qualities or engagement activities common among many of them. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 12& • Collaboration • Non-hierarchical organization • Collective art-making (sometimes called pro-am or professional-amateur) • Grassroots/community activism and social change • Education • Experimentation • Accessibility • Audience/viewer participation • Embrace of new and online media Joanna Inglot explains that in the absence of state funding and major institutions’ curatorial interest in work by regional women artists, the WARM collective (Minneapolis, 1973- 1991) sought support from local feminist movements and “Minnesota’s traditions of grassroots activism and cooperative organizing” (Inglot, p. 3), demonstrating local-centric political activism as well as direct community engagement. The collective went on to promote consciousness- raising and feminist art agendas through a variety of public programs, lectures and symposia, exhibitions and workshops, and active involvement in art criticism and feminist pedagogy. Marcia Tucker, former director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, wrote that “[t]oday, feminism faces the danger of becoming all theory and no practice.” Said Tucker, “[o]ne of the major contributions women can make is the creation of nonhierarchical, interactive models”. Here, she reiterates several feminist theorists’ calls for de-centering, undoing, or “exposing the illusion” of authority (p. 53). Tucker claims that it seems only women are interested in such an effort, citing her own museum’s innovative “management model…based on transparency—shared knowledge and decision-making, self-criticism, and collaboration” (p. 53). She suggests the possibility for such models and methods to be based in activities and practices characteristic of many (Western) feminist movements, including “women’s self-help collectives, community action groups, alternative schools and day-care programs, and neighborhood- building initiatives”. She concludes by asserting that feminism’s primary aim should be “to effect real social change in the existing political and cultural structures” (p. 53). Barbara Clark Smith (1994) confesses to having primarily focused on engaging women when curating Men and Women: A History of Costume, Gender, and Power for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (pp. 137-138). She posits a feminist reframing of visitor study that “reject[s] the patina of ‘objectivity’, to think…about how we PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 13& might listen to and engage our audiences…inform, question, rankle, prod, and invite visitors not merely to answer our questions but also to speak actively to and with us” (p. 139), thus invoking qualities of community engagement and dialogue integral to feminist art but also lauded by recent research on audience, visitor, and viewer participation and engagement. Joan Braderman (2007) writes about feminist and women artists’ early and prolific experimentation with video, prompted in part by ease of access to and affordability of video equipment that emerged in the 1970s, in contrast to the expense of the male-dominated film industry. Braderman describes numerous feminist and women-centered projects, programs, and initiatives based in video art and production that organized in the 1970s and ‘80s, highlighting women artists’ prominent roles in the development of and experimentation with this new medium. This is indicative of one of the many ways in which women, feminists, and feminist art have long been at the forefront of using and experimenting with new media, not only for artistic production, but also to support documentation of and participatory elements in programming, such as through the establishment of public access media labs; documentation of activism; and recording, sharing, and archiving of feminist meetings and activities across the country. Kay Armatage (2009) touches on several participatory and communal elements in her account of organizing and managing feminist and women’s film festivals, including collective program administration; communities developed among filmmakers and audiences alike; and effecting social change-oriented activity and critical dialogue through art (in this case, film). Deepwell (2006) also highlights feminist artistic and programming practices that illustrate how greatly many of the core components of new arts participation research and theory have been foundational to feminist art programs for decades, and continue to be so. These include collective and collaborative models for feminist art curation and practice as direct challenges to institutional spaces and male “genius” solo shows or retrospectives (p. 75); new models of public practice (or early incarnations of what is now referred to as “participatory” or “socially engaged” art or “social practice”) that were pioneered by feminist artists in the late 1970s, and which employ distinct modes engagement and participation in public space, positioning “art as a public discourse” engaged with activism and political publicity (pp. 77-78); and women artists’ embrace of new media “as modes of expression and as a feminist avant- garde.” (p. 78) PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 14& Arts Management’s New Models for Participation and Engagement Arts management literature tells us that engaged participation is fundamental to the future of successful arts programming and the rapidly changing landscape of 21st century arts administration, and that contemporary audiences, visitors, viewers, and participants want and will have richer experiences of artistic content through carefully planned interactivity and participatory engagement, both on- and offline (Simon, 2010). While not the focus of this project, it is important to acknowledge the growing discourse among critical and curatorial contemporary art circles around theories and implementations of relational art and aesthetics (Bourriaud, 2002), socially engaged art (Thompson, 2011), participatory and public media (Clark & Aufderheide, 2009), and other artistic, curatorial, and programming forms that privilege public engagement and community dialogue in both digital and place-based contexts. Many of these new movements in art form have a reciprocal relationship to theories and trends in arts participation from an arts management angle—a focus on public or audience participation, community building, social engagement, dialogue, interactivity, activism, and involvement as they lead to more meaningful and transformative experiences for viewers, audiences, and participants. Nicholas Bourriaud (2002) defines relational art as “a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space” (p. 113). Nato Thompson (2011) describes socially engaged art as cross- disciplinary cultural practices, characterized by collaboration and community engagement, that privilege participation and disrupt power. Rudolf Frieling (2008) explains participatory art as a surrender of authorial control, openness to others’ engagement, and “radical dismantling of traditional systems for evaluating art” without aim to produce “marketable objects” (p. 34). Several recent publications in arts participation research entreat arts organizations and funders to re-examine arts participation and shape programming—and even funding priorities— accordingly. Media research institutes are also publishing frequent reports on the changing use of digital tools informing participation and engagement with arts and culture. From this data, some common themes arise that closely parallel the participation and engagement programming elements long employed by, and still evident in, feminist art programs as described above. While many of these practices in contemporary art have just recently emerged as new movements (or even “anti-movements”) in production and programming, several key PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 15& characteristics—such as community engagement, collaboration, interaction, dialogue, social change, public programs, communal processes, activist and educational elements, collective authorship, and experiments with new media—have been integral to feminist art activity for decades; yet, the feminist legacy is unacknowledged. 1) Distinctions between artist and public are dissolving. Just as collective or collaborative processes and experiences and non-hierarchical structures of participation and organization have long served as defining elements of feminist art programs, recent arts management research claims that contemporary audiences or viewers seek to actively engage in creative processes with artists and other participants, whether by generating original artistic content, acquiring new skills, dialoguing with artists and publics, or designing and documenting their experience (Irvine Foundation, 2011; Simon, 2010). This can be linked to the concept of “pro-am,” or professional- amateur co-creation (Irvine Foundation, 2011), and to the notion of collaborative processes between artists and audiences that subverts the expert/non-expert dichotomy (Simon, 2010). Reports variously identify co-creation as Active Arts Programs (Irvine Foundation, 2011), Creation mode of participation (NEA, 2011), or Users as Creators (Simon, 2010). 2) Increasingly, participation and engagement with art take place online or via digital media. Just as women in the 1960s were quick to embrace video as a documentary method and artistic medium (Braderman, 2007) that was then taken up more formally by feminist art circles, many contemporary feminist art programs either actively employ or recognize the need to incorporate digital and online media for documentation, accessibility, dialogue, and engagement purposes, again illustrating long-standing methods and values of presentation and operation central to feminist art programming that are now being championed across the broader arts management field. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, elevated participation modes are now even more prevalent online or through electronic media (NEA, 2011), where they manifest as live audio and video streaming; personally curated channels of independent video art in the public domain; blogs and reviews; shared content via social media; sampled or re-mixed found images and sounds; self-published web zines and journals; and collaboratively created content across disciplines (Irvine Foundation, 2011). Even in place-based contexts, many people communicate their experience afterward through a variety of media platforms. Data also indicate PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 16& that US populations with lower levels of income and educational attainment are more likely to participate in arts via broadcast or recordings (NEA, 2011), including online audio and video. 3) A new report from the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy (2011) pressures arts and culture foundations to re-examine giving in light of statistics revealing that more than half of US arts and culture funding supports only the top 4% of arts organizations (the biggest and wealthiest), most of which uphold the Western art canon at the expense of other racial and ethnic groups, cultural traditions, genders, sexualities, and artistic practices. The Committee urges funders to re-structure giving models such that the majority of funds granted or donated support programs focused on “minority” art forms (such as traditional arts), artists (including women), and audiences. Especially important in this case is the push for increased funding to programs that promote social change through art, including grassroots activism and community building, which describe many feminist art programs. Given the parallel emphasis on public participation and community engagement between feminist art programs historically and new arts management research on participation and engagement, I conducted two case analyses of programs to track whether feminist art programs continue to exhibit such program planning traits, and if so, how they mirror participation and engagement strategies and methods called for by recent arts management reports. Case Analysis: Feminism & Co. Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics is a public program of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, founded and co-curated by feminist scholars Elissa Auther and Gillian Silverman. In a paper presented at a recent College Art Association conference, Auther (2010) describes Feminism & Co. as “a program series that explores feminist issues in popular and visual culture, social policy, and the art world through creative forms of pedagogy that move beyond the traditional format of a museum or university.” According to Auther, Feminism & Co. seeks to “cultivate and elevate public dialogue around feminist issues” and “advance common ground between scholarly and public discussions of feminism” while addressing the failure of most museums to present critical content that attracts a broad audience. In an interview with me (February 17, 2012), Auther highlighted Feminism & Co.’s playful approach to critical issues without diluting their seriousness. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 17& Public participation and community engagement are central to Feminism & Co.’s mission, design, and execution. Its commitment to connecting broad audiences with feminism, art, and politics via entertainment and pleasure is reflected in all program aspects, including: leadership; curatorial strategy; setting; local/regional emphasis; publicity material; and web presence. What follows are examples of how such programming areas embrace public participation, community engagement, and related themes, and their alignment with the arts participation research previously discussed, with the intent to illustrate their intersections and make the case for leveraging such research to enhance support for feminist art programs. Leadership Auther and Silverman are both professors at Colorado universities. Their shared leadership and curatorial model recalls a rich history of collectivist, non-hierarchical organizing fundamental to early feminist art galleries, collectives, and programs. In turn, they are part of a long history of women in the arts and academia who brought feminist theory, activism, and education to college classrooms and curricula while organizing feminist art opportunities off- campus and in communities. Auther’s and Silverman’s hybrid professorial-curatorial roles help bridge the cultural gap between universities and surrounding areas; coupled with a collaborative approach, they demonstrate community-oriented leadership and knowledge-sharing that dissolves distinctions between experts and non-experts, reflective of Feminism & Co.’s program goals as well as trends in arts participation research. Content and Curation Rather than solely privileging the perspectives of scholars, professionals, and other legitimized content experts, Feminism & Co. always features local community members, artists, and activists from diverse backgrounds as co-presenters with every program session, and as such, the general audience and participants represent a broader community cross-section than is typical with art audiences. The thematic focus of past programs demonstrates a breadth of topics in visual and popular culture the program seeks to explore and illuminate through a feminist lens, and, based on their speakers’ identities, through both scholarly perspective and lived experience: PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 18& • Muscle! asked participants to think about gender and power through the juxtaposition of female professional bodybuilding and the activist work of Latina Initiative, a community organization devoted to fostering Latina civic engagement. • Craftivism featured discussions and hands-on workshops with women crafters, examining domesticity and contemporary craft through a feminist lens. • Girls, Girls, Girls included a presentation by the director of a nonprofit for adolescent girls and a panel of local girls and their mothers discussing their dolls. • Toys and Tupperware examined the history and culture of female-dominated, home- based sales jobs with presentations by women in Tupperware, makeup, and sex toy sales. • FemCo Playlist explored music from the perspective of women rock and hip-hop artists, industry professionals, bloggers, and art and music historians, most of them local. (MCA Denver, 2011; The Lab at Belmar, 2008) This sampling exemplifies Feminism & Co.’s role as a platform for women with vastly different relationships to cultural issues to share expertise in an informal setting that encourages and supports a comfortable space for dialogue, direct participation, and co-creation while emphasizing feminist politics and perspectives. The convergence of speakers, presenters, and performers addressing a single issue from rarely juxtaposed perspectives can generate new feminist vocabularies and cultural lexicons while subverting traditional notions of authorship, authority, and expertise. In turn, by merging critical issues and both traditional and experimental practices with pop culture, and by presenting experiences that find equal value in contributions and perspectives of local artists, scholars, community members, children, and adults, Feminism & Co. makes complex discussions of feminist politics and contemporary visual culture both accessible to a diverse public and contingent upon their active engagement. Auther (personal communication, February 17, 2012) underscores how experimental and “public” the program truly is, as it requires a lack of control, a succumbing to the influence of audience participation, and acceptance of both the “nerve-wracking” and rewarding experience of production given the level of unknown outcomes in working with a combination of seasoned academic speakers and community members with no public presentation experience at all. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 19& Space Feminism & Co. is thoughtful about the politics of space. By presenting the program at a downtown museum, they move critical conversations about art and gender to a public institution charged with reaching local residents and the larger community, not just students and faculty. While museums on the whole are heavily bound up in the politics of high and low art, accessibility, and representation and are often guilty of perpetuating privilege, pretension, and exclusivity, Feminism & Co. injects the museum space with overtly progressive politics, feminist sex and pleasure, low art, live performance, pop culture, marginalized identities, alcohol, talking, and touching, transforming the museum into a more accessible and inclusive community space. To cultivate an intimate, informal, social, and yet critically engaged experience with wide appeal, Auther (2010) says Feminism & Co. considers how people like to spend their leisure time, a critical component in arts management. The result? A bar at every event; and in line with what Auther calls an “irreverent, sometimes ironic” attitude infused with social commentary, “men always drink free.” Local Connections and Community Partnerships Many museum-based public programs almost exclusively feature formal lectures by visiting speakers that attract niche audiences and involve little interaction, maintaining a problematic power dynamic of outside (urban) expert come to educate (regional) locals. In contrast, Feminism & Co.’s local and regional artists, activists, and scholars validate local knowledge and cultural assets and promote skills-sharing that can spark future collaboration. A local focus also helps contextualize complex social and political concerns through the lens of community culture and the voices of its members rather than outsider experience, thus promoting dialogical art and the potential for participation. When Feminism & Co. featured a local Latina activist group, the audience could discuss gender and power in the context of demographics, race relations, cultural dynamics, and social politics specific to and apparent in their own community. A sale of craft goods by a women’s microenterprise effort that took place in the museum following a program enabled participants to translate a discussion of gender- based economic inequality in a presentational context into direct engagement with community members and issues embedded in the politics addressed by the program, and to participate in grassroots solutions and local activism alongside an accessible dialogue about gender politics. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 20& Marketing and Publicity Feminism & Co. publicity materials demonstrate a conscientious awareness of how visual identity can influence public response, especially when challenged with attracting a broad audience to both a museum (an institutional space steeped in a legacy of exclusivity) and to critical content made frequently inaccessible by demanding theoretical and historical background. I argue that Feminism & Co.’s image visibly strives to connote an effort to make critical engagement with feminism, art, and politics less intimidating and more entertaining—and as such, accessible and appealing to a more diverse public. The program’s announcement cards communicate a warm, friendly, and inviting experience with a hint of provocation. Illustrated with thick lines, warm tones, rounded shapes, and bursts of bright color, the image features a black woman in the foreground, wearing headphones and knitting, enveloped in a dense fusion of retro, crafty aesthetics evoking psychedelia, crochet, quilting, and appliqué. Behind her, creamy white tendrils envelop the Earth. In orange-tinted red and deep blue, the logo typeface conjures a ‘70s rock band t-shirt or modern design magazine. Below it, capitalized, reads “ART + SEX + POLITICS.” The card’s visual and cultural cues communicate Feminism & Co.’s curatorial themes: “women’s work,” craft, informal arts, popular music, global politics, representations of women in contemporary culture, and intersections of art, race, and gender. The illustration visually popularizes feminism and uses text sparingly, leaving room to interpret, respond, and fill in the blanks. No one is forced to decipher theoretical texts or conceptual images (e.g., recognizing the card's aesthetic nod to second wave feminism); simple language combined with popular content and style makes art, sex, and politics translate, first and foremost, as a lively, intriguing, smart, sexy, fun, assertive conversation to which anyone can contribute. Online Media As in the arts participation research previously discussed, several recent forecasts on the new public and participatory media landscape reflect emerging trends for arts and culture, most notably the imperative need for arts programs to respond to changing participation and engagement patterns among audiences, artists, and communities to achieve goals and objectives. Among other things, these reports tell us that: web-based programs engage broad new audiences, make content more accessible, and add context and depth to experience while PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 21& motivating repeat participation (nPower, n.d.); that as the newly dominant online media form, video allows users to generate compelling stories that make it critical to social change (Institute for the Future, 2009); and that collaboratively created and widely distributed media technologies are instrumental in fostering participatory behavior (Center for Social Media, 2009). These and similar reports increasingly agree that a robust online presence is integral to generating new and diverse audiences and cultivating critical conversation and community connection. I will consider this now in connection with Feminism & Co. A web search for Feminism & Co. yields the program’s Facebook page; a couple of old articles and blog posts; a page on the MCA Denver website; a page from the archives of its former host site in Denver; and a handful of short YouTube videos. While their old website links to three social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, and an empty YouTube channel) and archives of video and audio podcasts, the MCA Denver site provides only a brief program overview—no dates, photos or video, forums, comments, or links to press, blogs, or social media. These results demonstrate that while Feminism & Co. are conscious of the new “if you don’t have a website, you don’t exist” mantra, they have not yet developed a multimodal media scheme that allows for widespread knowledge of and engagement beyond their immediate community. Even current participants would benefit from more dynamic online content that meets audiences’ changing expectations, such as numerous nodes of entry and access to content; multiple participation modes; and opportunities to archive and share content that sparks dialogue outside the program’s physical and temporal confines. Ongoing online forums could help Feminism & Co. achieve its goal of generating broad public dialogue. The program could also harness the power of video, moving beyond documentation of live presentations to additionally produce short, made-for-video versions that apply Feminism & Co.’s curatorial model to a new medium—a group of women discussing a cultural topic from diverse perspectives, perhaps each of them from a different part of the country—and then leading a live chat with online audiences. This enriches the notion of community engagement as a hybrid form of place-based/online involvement, permitting both more frequent programming as well as increased access for those who cannot attend, whether because they are locals who lack the means, or fans further afield who want to hear from Denver feminists and artists. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 22& Given the near ubiquity among media researchers and scholars of the forecasts I’ve just discussed and their likely influence on arts and culture organizations and funders, it is imperative that feminist art programs begin or continue to implement, integrate, and manage media in connection with their program activities, goals, and messages. Even for programs like Feminism & Co. that are not outcomes-oriented, digital media facilitates sharing of curatorial models and content among feminists, artists, audiences, and organizations within and beyond the physical community, publicizing the program and attracting place-based participation while expanding community activity, connection, and dialogue. More online media could garner Feminism & Co. greater exposure and partnerships among arts and culture, feminist, and community funders; increase interest in the programs’ artists, scholars, and presenters; and support the spread of feminist art, research, politics, and culture. Case Analysis: The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art, & Politics In 2008, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco was the site for the contemporary feminist art exhibition The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics (TWTWR), curated by Berin Golonu, then Associate Curator of Visual Art. Golonu collaborated with YBCA’s Performing Arts Curator, Angela Mattox, and Community Engagement Coordinator, Cicely Sweed, to develop a public programming arm of the exhibition that took place throughout the exhibition’s duration and included performance, music, films, panels, and participatory events. YBCA’s promotional and curatorial language described TWTWR as a showcase of “politically charged work of a new generation of women” focused on “performativity, collaboration, and coalition building” and aligned with “feminist ideologies and activist movements of the past” while being fiercely contemporary in relation to current issues faced by women. The project’s communal and collective values are reiterated through an emphasis on “strength in numbers” and gathering of work by “women of differing backgrounds and disciplines to highlight the common goals of their practices.” (Hetherington, 2008) The following data comes from an interview I conducted with Golonu (personal communication, February 21, 2012). As she describes in our conversation, the exhibition’s themes were inspired by two other feminist art exhibitions that took place a few months prior to TWTWR, one an international showcase of work by younger and emerging women artists called Global Feminisms (Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, 2007) and PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 23& the other a historical survey of influential US and European feminist work titled WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2008). Golonu was interested from the outset in putting intergenerational feminisms in conversation. She cites WACK! as particularly influential in “forming a dialog between historical work and contemporary practices by a younger generation of feminists,” which could therefore contribute to “a resurgence and a commemoration of feminist practice today.” The exhibition also considered topics Golonu describes as pertinent to women globally, including economic oppression, gender-based violence, reproductive rights, and sexuality. As I will explain further, TWTWR and TWTWR in Motion together exemplify the common qualities of feminist art programs already articulated, specifically collaboration; community engagement; public participation and participatory activity; non-hierarchical organizing; professional-amateur methods; and audience-centered programming. Leadership In her interview, Golonu articulated the effective collaboration among curators at different institutions, and among artists in San Francisco, as a major achievement of TWTWR, and one that she said helped to “transgress the limits of a single institution.” She specifically cited a programming partnership with curators Jill Dawsey and Maria del Carmen at New Langton Arts, who were developing a feminist art show simultaneous to TWTWR, and which also evoked what Golonu described as a “call and response between the past and present,” or between contemporary feminist concerns and the legacy of the women’s movement. Together, the three curators organized a joint panel discussion, From the Salon to the Moshpit: Spaces of Assembly, which helped to elucidate thematic threads running through both exhibitions. In addition to the this panel, Golonu was invited to speak on a public panel with Dawsey and del Carmen at New Langton Arts, which she described as “productive and inclusive”, and which drew a highly diverse group of participants across gender, age, race, and ethnicity. Similar to Feminism & Co.’s collaborative model that partners not only via co-curation but between academic and arts institutions, she and others in the local sector sought to equally and collectively curate and program free, public events in a supportive fashion, thus placing the education and experience of audiences and participants at the fore, and highlighting shared content over institutional territorialism, typifying feminist art’s collaborative and non-hierarchical models and values. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 24& Content and Curation In her curatorial vision and strategy for TWTWR, Golonu was purposeful in privileging public participation, involving only “artists who I knew would bring a participatory ethos into the exhibition and into the galleries,” and collaborating with them directly to program, plan, and fully realize projects that extended beyond gallery-based installations. Expanding on TWTWR’s major themes, Golonu drew attention to its emphasis on performativity and collectivity, both of which she describes as “longstanding feminist strategies” for communicating the politics of visibility and representation. She provided specific examples of curatorial and program content in TWTWR that exemplified participatory and collectivist methods, tactics, strategies, and values. The panel discussion co-curated by Golonu and the New Langton Arts staff, From the Salon to the Moshpit: Spaces of Assembly, featured feminist curators, artists, and musicians in public dialogue about “the creation of spaces of assembly for women artists and cultural producers,” which Golonu describes as having been “nonhierarchical, supportive, encouraging, yet inquisitive and open to dialog,” while also providing a space for shared resources. While specific to discussion content rather than format or mode of engagement (panel discussion), each of these elements is common to feminist art practice and programming. According to Golonu, the inclusion of women artist groups and collectives like SubRosa, Toxic Titties, and LTTR underscored collaborative modes of working. And while she uses them as examples of feminist performative strategies, I posit that Golonu’s description of Vaginal Davis’ projects in the exhibition demonstrate both public and participatory tactics and methods in feminism and feminist art. According to Golonu, “cross-dresser Davis conducted two different sets of events for gender-specific audiences,” including a “ladies”-only salon for the discussion of issues important to women, and stories of female familial upbringing. Davis also held private, exclusive, one-on-one meetings of 15 minutes each with consenting male visitors. Golonu describes the women’s salon as less participatory or collaborative and more spectator-based, though I would argue that a project that asks audience members to self-identify as female and share in a public setting is at least designed to encourage participation of some sort, different from the traditional or expected behaviors of formal exhibition attendees, whether through engaging discussion or the simple act of gathering outside the exhibition space to experience live interaction with artists and other audience members, and in a context that helps to illuminate and productively complicate the exhibition’s themes. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 25& More directly participatory was a project called Counterfeit Crotchet Project by Stephanie Syjuco, which Golonu described as a series of crochet circles and workshops sited within the installation. Workshops were instructed by leaders trained by Syjuco, who then worked directly with participants from the general public. Workshop content focused on producing crocheted counterfeit designer handbags, pieces similar to those of the artist, and all of which contributed to the larger installation. Syjuco then displayed the bags online through what Golonu terms an “open-call pattern exchange” that allowed crocheters globally to share their patterns. “This free exchange of skills, knowledge, and ideas within a larger group promoted a collaborative, non-hierarchical mode of working valued by feminist ideals” while embodying a DIY ethic and a “non-professional mode of working,” said Golonu. Not only was the project collaborative and participatory in the ways Golonu describes— co-leadership, skills-sharing, audience engagement—but it also demonstrates the “pro-am”, or “professional-amateur”, model of art making put forth by the Irvine Foundation (2011), which could be defined as a shared, collaborative process of creating an artist’s or collective’s work that involves both professional and amateur co-creation—in this case, artists and workshop leaders creating alongside general public participants, all of whom contribute to the exhibit. In turn, the project easily fits within the broader field of social practice, or socially engaged art, in that it aims to build awareness of or activism in response to sociopolitical issues (here, consumerism, consumption, and corporatism). Altogether, feminist processes and practices are visible through the project’s collaborative and non-hierarchical models, community engagement, direct public participation, and grassroots political underpinnings. Space In the case of Feminism & Co., I discussed general use of space—transferring an academic discussion to a downtown museum—as one of its feminist-informed strategies for participation, diversification, and community outreach. With TWTWR, it is interesting to note the way previously exclusive space is opened up for audience engagement and learning. Golonu discussed with me how TWTWR made available to “a select group of feminist scholars, art historians, and students” the personal archives of pioneering feminist and socially engaged artists Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Leibovitz’s collaborative artistic practice. “I believe this project was an attempt on the part of the artists to write themselves into a canon of art PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 26& history that had traditionally excluded their work,” said Golonu. While she makes clear that overall access to the project—or the “inclusivity” so important to feminism—was limited due to the fragility of much of the archive’s content, I would counter that archives of this caliber and special interest typically comprise the very types of objects and ephemera that only a handful of curators and dedicated researchers or scholars might ever see, and that TWTWR permitted access for a much broader audience and community of interest that transcended the art world to include other types of feminist workers. Golonu does add that the artists hoped that even this somewhat limited access to the archive would increase its broader visibility to the extent that a library or other resource-rich collecting institution would come to acquire, digitize, and educate about it, thus expanding access across broadly in both place-based and online contexts. Elaborating on the unfolding of audience and public participation and engagement, Golonu identifies both successes and challenges. “I wanted to bring younger feminists in dialog with preceding generations of feminists…so it was an intergenerational mix of artists,” said Golonu (personal communication, February 21, 2012). She explains that the exhibition’s public programming arm was largely effective in helping the exhibition to generate dialogue and networking among feminists, but that it could have used more formal, organized forums to yield greater results of this sort, such as a free plenary session or round table at the end of the event to engage both participating artists and general audience members in equal exchange, enriching and transcending the artist-exclusive panel discussions and Q&A sessions. Online Media TWTWR’s online components were lacking, according to Golonu, who stated that “blogs and other online spaces where audience members could come together to generate dialog…[are] extremely important to provide” but that the resources for developing such a platform didn’t enter into the exhibition’s planning phase, in part because of a leadership transition in Yerba Buena’s marketing department. To some extent, Golonu lamented the lack of global dialogue and exchange—what she described as “trans-national or trans-cultural” rather than just local, regional, or national--that a blog or other online forum might have helped cultivate (language and accessibility issues still being barriers). Under new leadership, the exhibition immediately following TWTWR employed a robust blog to promote audience dialog. Thus, not unlike Feminism & Co. and MCA Denver, the curators and organization at large recognized the value PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 27& of digital and online media as an extended space for enhanced engagement with and discussion of the exhibition and its themes, but at the time, it wasn’t prioritized. While the exhibition was visible promotionally on Yerba Buena’s website—with its own, distinct visual identity, imagery, and curatorial language—its broader online presence, embedded as part of the program itself, was non-existent. While I articulate pioneering and experimental uses of digital and online media as characteristic of feminist art programs more broadly, both case studies demonstrate a leveling, to some degree, of innovative uses of technology in feminist art programs, on par with, and sometimes sub-standard to, other examples of artistic and cultural programming and production—even in other feminist realms, such as the emergence of online feminist academic journals, or the feminist blogosphere’s tackling of social and political perspectives on current events through online media. Given new arts participation literature’s emphasis on digital and web-based media as a current and future model for elevated engagement with and access to the arts, it is arguably in the best interest of feminist art programs to think critically and collectively about the use of technology in presentation and participation, and to look to other types of feminist projects and programs with an online presence to determine how to maximize access to and engagement with feminist art and its ideals via new media. And yet, despite the lack of digital and online media, the extent to which TWTWR created opportunities for place-based interaction and connection is also in line with feminist practices and politics, which often call for interpersonal communication and engagement, on-the-ground collaboration, sharing of ideas and opinions in discussion and meeting settings, and other strategies for building safe spaces for dialogue and action. Conclusion: Implications for the Future of Feminist Art To conclude, I refer to the conclusion of Elissa Auther’s 2010 College Art Association conference presentation about Feminism & Co., in which she asks how the program “relate[s] to a history of feminist pedagogy that has always imagined itself oppositional and results oriented (i.e., an activist model)? Is it possible to imagine a feminist pedagogy that aims to create a space for dialogue that is not exclusively organized around activism or measurable outcomes?” (p. 2) These questions call to mind early feminist critiques that debunked Modernism’s mythic male genius and his masterpiece, shifting attention to process, to work that revealed and reveled PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 28& in imperfection, fluidity, and frustration with art world mandates. Auther’s provocations evoke the feminism of process, and she responds reflexively, un-fixing Feminism & Co. as a revolving practice rather than solidified outcome. This could be representative of a valuable and meaningful correlation between feminist programs past and present, a historical link signaling endurance of feminist art, thought, and politics that still carry meaning and consequence. In turn, a privileging of process resists metrics, logic models, quantitative data, and other formulaic, universalizing tools routinely used by funders to evaluate nonprofits. In this sense, a process- based program that cultivates, as Auther says, “a space for dialogue” is a feminist act. However, as research shared earlier corroborates, funders are catching up with the new arts participation landscape. As a multimodal spectrum, participation will influence operation and evaluation models friendlier to process and qualitative response and more open to programs like Feminism & Co. that differ culturally and diverge operationally from standard practices. Yet, to invoke the spirit of more traditional arts management practice—and to return to my aim of placing feminism and arts management in conversation, there is value to knowing if goals are being met. What we need next is feminist program evaluation. Projects like Feminism & Co. and The Way That We Rhyme could aim to define what a broad audience means for them, then collect qualitative data to determine who attends, who does not, and why, and whether the program’s creative pedagogical and participatory models make an impact—and if so, of what sort. Do participants better understand art and feminism after attending? Do they engage in dialogue with other participants or share what they learned? Are they inspired to further engage with art and feminist issues? In sum, do these programs provide a transformative experience, especially for those who would not otherwise seek or have access to critical thought and discourse on art and gender? If results don’t match goals, then changes to content, web presence, or publicity materials can be tested. Of course, research requires time and money, which is all the more reason for feminist art programs to be conscious of funding trends (now heavily informed by arts participation research) and how these align with their programs’ practices. My research finds that feminist art programs continue to incorporate many participation and engagement elements fundamental to their predecessors, and which are now also identified in arts participation research: collaboration and co-creation that dissolves artist/audience and expert/non-expert dichotomies; pioneering use of new media to theorize, discuss, document, PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 29& archive, and make art, culture, and feminism; and art as a subject of and vehicle for critical dialogue or action focused on community building and social change. This emerging alignment of feminist art programs’ core ideologies with new trends in arts management literature—specifically in connection with participation and engagement-- demonstrates the possibility of feminist art’s changing relationship to programming and funding, one contingent upon making known the ways in which feminist art programs have always embodied and enacted those methods and values, and continue to do so, and that in fact these modes of participation and engagement are not new, and feminist art was at the forefront of putting them into theory and practice. The common qualities of feminist art programs previously articulated are now visibly stated as core values and priorities in both arts programming and funding sectors, as evidenced by the arts participation research cited earlier—as these shifts continue to take hold, programs like Feminism & Co. and The Way That We Rhyme—many of which were considered, not long ago, too politically risky for public or private support—could be better positioned for competitive funding and other types of support. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 30& References Armatage, K. (2009). Material effects: Fashions in feminist programming. There she goes: Feminist filmmaking and beyond (pp. 92-104). Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Auther, E. (2010). Feminist artists and feminist curators: A conversation about collaboration. From College Art Association: The Feminist Art Project Special Sessions. Chicago. Bollen, C. (March 23, 2012). Guerrilla Girls. Retrieved from http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/guerrilla-girls#_ Borwick, D. (Ed). (2012). Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts in the United States. Winston-Salem, NC: ArtsEngaged. Bourriaud, N. (2002). Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les Presses du reel. Braderman, J. (2007). Feminism and video: A view from the village. Camera Obscura, 22(1), 197-208. Center for Social Media. (2009). Public media 2.0: Dynamic, engaged publics. Washington, DC: Center for Social Media. J. Clark, P. & Aufderheide. Deepwell, K. (2006). Feminist curatorial strategies and practices since the 1970s. In J. E. Marstine (Ed.), New museum theory and practice: An introduction (pp. 64-84). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Deepwell, K. (2010). 12 step guide to feminist art, art history, and criticism. N. paradoxa Online, 21, 4-16. Frieling, R. (2008). The art of participation. San Francisco, CA: SF MoMA. Gouma-Peterson, T. a. M., Patricia. (1987). The feminist critique of art history. The Art Bulletin, 69(3), 326-357. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 31& Hetherington, Alex. (2008, n.d.). “The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics.” Retrieved from http://www.artpractical.com/shotgun_review_past/the_way_that_we_rhyme_women_art_politics hooks, b. (1986). SISTERHOOD: Political solidarity between women. Feminist Review, 23, 125-138. Inglot, J. (2007). WARM: A feminist art collective in Minnesota. Minneapolis, MN: Weisman Art University, University of Minnesota. James Irvine Foundation. (2011). Getting in on the act: How arts groups are creating active opportunities for arts participation. San Francisco: A. S. Brown & J. L. Novak-Leonard. Institute for the Future (2009). The future of video: Becoming people of the screen. Palo Alto, CA: J. Dunagan and D. E. Harris. Krauss, S. (2005). Research methods and meaning making: A primer. The Qualitative Report, 10(4), 761-768. The Lab at Belmar. (2008, April 3). Feminism & co: Girls, girls, girls. Video retrieved from http://www.belmarlab.org/videos.php?emailafriend=30 Lippard, L. (1995). Both sides now: A reprise. In The pink glass swan (pp. 266-277). New York, NY: New Press. MCA Denver. (2011, November 30). 2011 Feminism & co: Craftivism, Playlist, Toys and Tupperware,. Videos retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/user/mcadenver1485 Morineau, C. (2009). elles@centrepompidou: Addressing difference. In elles@centrepompidou: Women artists in the collection of the Musée national d'art moderne, Centre de création industrielle (pp. 15-19). Paris: Centre Pompidou. National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. (2011). Fusing arts, culture, and social change: High impact strategies for philanthropy. Washington, D.C.: H. Sidford. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 32& National Endowment for the Arts. (2011). Beyond Attendance: A multi-modal understanding of arts participation. Washington, DC: WolfBrown. nPower (n.d.). “Mission Support Tool for Arts and Culture”. Technology Guide for Nonprofits. O’Neill, P. (2010). Three stages in the art of public participation. derive, 39 (English version). Retrieved from www.eurozine.com/articles/2010-08-12-oneill-en.html Pollack, G. (1988). Feminist interventions in the history of art. In E. Fernie (Ed.), Art History and Its Methods: A Critical Anthology. London: Phaidon Press, Ltd. Reilly, M. (2007). Introduction: Toward transnational feminisms. In M. Reilly & L. Nochlin (Eds.), Global feminisms: New directions in contemporary art (pp. 15-45). New York: Merrell Publishers. Simon, N. (2010). The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz, CA, Museum 2.0. Small, Stephen A. (1995). Action-oriented research: Models and methods. Journal of Marriage and Family, 57(4), 941-955. Smith, B. C. (1994). A case study of applied feminist theories. In J. R. Glaser & A. A. Zenetou (Eds.), Gender perspectives: Essays on women in museums (pp. 137-146). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Thompson, N. (2011). Living as form. Retrieved from http://www.creativetime.org/programs/archive/2011/livingasform/curator_statement.htm Tucker, M. (1994). From theory to practice: Correcting inequalities. In J. R. Glaser & A. A. Zenetou (Eds.), Gender perspectives: Essays on women in museums (pp. 51-55). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 33& Appendix A Sample Recruitment Email Dear [insert name], My name is Roya Amirsoleymani, and I am a master’s candidate in Arts Management at the University of Oregon. I obtained your contact information from [program website, co-worker, etc.]. I would like to invite you to participate in my research about how feminist art programs incorporate public participation and community engagement experiences into their programming. Given your involvement with [insert program name], I believe your perspective and insight are very valuable to this project’s focus and would greatly enrich research data. If you decide to participate, you will take part in an interview (approximately one hour) in person or by telephone/video phone outside your job site and work hours. I would audio record your interview and use the information to help illustrate how [insert program name] defines/defined and incorporates/incorporated public participation and community engagement experiences into its programming. This study is completely voluntary. If you would like to participate or have any questions about the project, please contact me at xxx-xxx-xxxx or xxx@uoregon.edu. Thank you very much for your time. Sincerely, Roya Amirsoleymani M.S. Candidate, Arts Management Arts and Administration Program University of Oregon PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 34& Appendix B Sample Verbal/Phone Recruitment Script Hello - My name is Roya Amirsoleymani, and I am a student from the Arts and Administration Program at the University of Oregon. I'm calling to talk to you about participating in my research study. This is a study about public participation and community engagement experiences in feminist art programs. You're eligible to be in this study because you work(ed) on programming for the exhibition [insert exhibition title here]. I obtained your contact information from [describe source]. If you decide to participate in this study, you will take part in an interview to last approximately one hour, either in person or by telephone/video phone, outside your job site and work hours. I would like to audio record your interview and use the information to help illustrate how [insert program name] defines/defined, plans/planned for, and incorporates/incorporated public participation and community engagement experiences into its programming. This is completely voluntary. You can choose to be in the study or not. If you'd like to participate, we can go ahead and schedule a time to talk by phone or web video, such as Skype, to give you more information. If you need more time to decide, you may also call or email me with your decision. Do you have any questions for me at this time? If you have any more questions about this process, or if you need to contact me about participation, I can be reached at 602-908-3539 or roya@uoregon.edu. Thank you so much for your time. & & PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 35& Appendix C Sample Consent Form University of Oregon Arts and Administration Program Informed Consent for Participation as a Subject in Public Participation and Community Engagement: Intersections in Arts Participation and Feminist Art Programs Investigator: Roya Amirsoleymani Type of consent: Adult Consent Form Introduction • You are being asked to be in a research study about how feminist art programs incorporate public participation and community engagement experiences into their programming. • You were selected as a possible participant because of your lead curatorial or programming role in The Way That We Rhyme (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2008). • Please read this form and ask any questions you have before agreeing to be in the study. Purpose of Study • The purpose of this research is to better understand how feminist art programs plan opportunities for audiences, communities, or general public to participate and engage with feminist art and ideas. The project focuses on strategies and methods used by such programs and how these public participation and community engagement activities are reflected in and informed by past feminist art programs as well as recent arts participation research. • The number of interview subjects is expected to be three program administrators in roles similar to yours. Description of the Study Procedures • If you agree to be in this study, we ask you to do the following: • Respond to one set of interview questions via email that should require no more than one hour of time to complete. • If needed, participate respond to occasional follow-up questions via email (1/2 hour total, February/March 2012). Risks/Discomforts of Being in the Study • The study has the following risks. First, this study plans to openly identify participants and program names being discussed. If you choose to express critical or negative perceptions of or feelings about the program with which you work or worked, this could affect your employment or relations with this program and/or individuals associated with it if those comments are included in the final study and you are identified in association with them. • The second risk is that confidential information stored with research data could be breached, such as name, phone number, email, job title, and name of organization/program. • If you wish to remain anonymous in this study, your name and the name of your program and/or institution will be replaced in the final report with pseudonyms determined in consultation with you. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 36& Benefits of Being in the Study: • The purpose of this research is to better understand how feminist art programs plan opportunities for the public and community to participate and engage with the main ideas of a feminist art or media exhibition, or of feminism and art more generally. The project focuses on how programs plan for and incorporate public participation and community engagement experiences into their programming, and how such activities are aligned with or reflected in theories and practices of past feminist art programs and emerging arts participation research. • The potential benefits of participation are: increased understanding of or improved clarity about your program’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities in relation to public participation and community engagement planning and strategy, and increased knowledge of advancements in arts participation theory and research that might be applied to your program for potential enhancement or improvement. Payments: • You will not receive any payment to participate in this research study. Costs: • There is no cost to you to participate in this research study. Confidentiality: • In the final report of this study, we will only include your name and the name of the organization or program with which you are being associated. No other identifying information will be included. If you wish to remain anonymous, your name and the name of the program and/or institution will be replaced with pseudonyms to be determined in consultation with you. • The records of this study will be kept private. Research records, including audio files, will be maintained electronically and coded and secured using a password-protected file on both a computer and a UBS flash drive. Both the computer and flash drive will be password-protected, and the computer will be secured with anti-virus software to protect data and privacy. Files will be completely erased from the computer and flash drive after three (3) years. • The principal investigator of the study, Roya Amirsoleymani, will be the only person with access to the research records and files. However, please note that the Institutional Review Board and internal University of Oregon auditors may review the research records. Voluntary Participation/Withdrawal: • Your participation is voluntary. If you choose not to participate, it will not affect your current or future relations with the University of Oregon or the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. • You are free to withdraw at any time, for whatever reason. • There is no penalty or loss of benefits for not taking part or for stopping your participation. *You will be provided with any significant new findings that develop during the course of the research that may make you decide that you want to stop participating. *Dismissal from the Study: • The investigator may withdraw you from the study at any time for the following reasons: (1) withdrawal is in your best interests; (2) you have failed to comply with the study requirements; (3) the study is terminated. PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 37& Contacts and Questions: • The researcher conducting this study is Roya Amirsoleymani. For questions or more information concerning this research, you may contact her at xxx-xxx-xxxx or xxxx@uoregon.edu. • If you have any questions about your rights as a research subject, you may contact the Office for Protection of Human Subjects, University of Oregon at (541-346-2510) or human_subjects@uoregon.edu Anonymity Option: I understand that I have the option to remain anonymous in this study. If I choose to remain anonymous, my name and other identifying information, including place of work, job title, and program or organization name, will be replaced with pseudonyms in all public presentations or publications of this data and final research. Please check the appropriate box below. ☐ I consent to the use of my real and full name, job title, and name of the program or organization about which I am being interviewed in any presentation or publication of this project as it is pertinent to this project and its goals. ☐ I do NOT consent to the use of my name or any other identifying information in the presentation or publication of this project. I will consult with the principal researcher, Roya Amirsoleymani, to determine appropriate pseudonyms for this information. Copy of Consent Form: • You will be given a copy of this form to keep for your records and future reference. Statement of Consent: • For Adult Consent Form or older child (12-17 years) combined Consent/Assent (Full form): I have read (or have had read to me) the contents of this consent form and have been encouraged to ask questions. I have received answers to my questions. I give my consent to participate in this study. I have received (or will receive) a copy of this form. Signatures/Dates Study Participant (Print Name): Date: Participant or Legal Representative Signature : Date: &&& & PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 38& Appendix D Sample Research Instrument: Document Analysis Code:!F!(feminism),!FA!(feminist!art),!FAP!(feminist!art!programs),!PP!(public!participation),!CE! (community!engagement),!AP!(arts!participation),!DM!(digital/new!media),!PB!(placeAbased),!SP! (social!practice),!COLL!(collaboration),!AAC!(audienceAcentered!programming)! Key(Theme:(! Document(Location:!(public/private)! Date:( Document(Type:!! _____!Report,!Article,!Book!!!_____!Curriculum! _____!Program’s!Records!____!!Job!Descriptions! _____!Website!!____Marketing/Programming!Materials! Author/Creator:( Summary:(( ( ((((((Coding( ( ( ( Information( ( ( ( ( Notes( ! ! ! ! ! ! PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 39& Appendix E Sample Research Instrument: Case Analysis Interview Case(Analysis:(! ! ! ! ! ! Code:!F!(feminism),!FA!(feminist!art),!FAP!(feminist!art!programs),!PP!(public!participation),!! CE!(community!engagement),!AP!(arts!participation),!DM!(digital/new!media),!PB!(placeAbased),! SP!(social!practice),!COLL!(collaboration),!AAC!(audienceAcentered!programming)! Key(Theme:(FA,!AP,!PP/CE!feminist!arts!programming!! Date:( ! ! ! ! ! Interview(Location:! Participant(Background:( Consent:((___(Oral(____Written(____Audio(Recording((___(OK(to(Quote( ( Interview(Context:( ( ((((((Coding( ( ( ( Information( ( ( ( ( Notes( ! ! ! ! ! PARTICIPATION&AND&ENGAGEMENT&IN&FEMINIST&ART&PROGRAMS& & 40& Interview(Questions( ( *Note:'Questions'will'be'converted'to'past'tense'if'interviewing'a'respondent'who'previously' worked'with'the'program'in'question.'' ' 1)!What!is!your!role!with![program'name]?!How!long!have!you!been!involved!with!it?!! 2)!What!is!the!program’s!mission,!vision,!goals,!values?!! 3)!How!does!the!program!define!feminism!and!feminist!art?! 4)!What!makes!it!feminist/a!feminist!art!program?! 5)!How!does!the!program!design!or!plan!for!public!participation!and!community!engagement! experiences!with!the!artistic/program!content?!! ! A!What!do!you!plan?!Why!is!it!important?!How!are!concepts!such!as!public!participation!!!! ! !!and!community!engagement!understood!by!the!program!staff?!!By!participants?! 6)!Are!the!participatory!and!communityAbased!activities!you!plan!specifically!informed!by! feminism!or!feminist!art?!If!so,!how?!! 7)!Are!the!participatory!and!communityAbased!activities!you!plan!specifically!informed!by!arts! participation!theories,!research,!trends,!or!“best!practices”?!If!so,!how?!If!not,!why?!Are!these! appropriate!to!feminist!contexts?!! 8)!Do!you!plan!for!both!digital!and!placeAbased!modes!of!engagement?!If!so,!what!does!that! look!like?!!!!If!you!don’t!plan!for!both,!why!not?!Will!you!in!the!future?!! 9)!How!are!the!public!participation!and!community!engagement!elements!you!plan!and! incorporate!into!the!program!influenced!by!specific!organizational!or!local!culture!and!context?!! 10)!What!do!you!think!or!know!to!be!the!impact!of!these!activities!on!your!program!goals?! What!is!their!value!to!your!programming?!!&&&