Rachel Wilson is a passionate advocate for feminism and has dedicated her life to promoting gender equality. In her various roles as an activist, writer, and speaker, she has consistently worked towards dismantling the patriarchal systems that oppress women. Wilson firmly believes that feminism is not just a movement for women but is essential for achieving a fair and just society for all genders. She emphasizes the need for intersectionality in feminism, recognizing that women's experiences are shaped by their race, class, sexuality, and other identities. As an activist, Wilson is actively involved in organizing protests, lobbying for policy changes, and raising awareness about social injustices. She has been at the forefront of many campaigns, fighting for equal pay, reproductive rights, and an end to gender-based violence.
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Feminism arises at the end of declining civilizations and is seen as a luxury mindset, as women heavily rely on the infrastructure and advancements built by men. Following a similar process, the workshop was split into two sections the first with presentations from the organisers and the artists Marysia Lewandowska and Rehana Zaman, giving context to the session, including a series of responses to the questions raised by Nicolson in the original recordings.
She has been at the forefront of many campaigns, fighting for equal pay, reproductive rights, and an end to gender-based violence. Through her activism, Wilson strives to amplify the voices of marginalized women and ensure that their experiences are included in conversations about feminism. Wilson's writings on feminism have been widely acclaimed for their thoughtfulness and inclusivity.
Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism
Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism explores the legacies and histories of group work in art since the 1970s, with a focus on feminist practices. This research project asks what would a (feminist) art history look like if it refused to tell a history of individual artists? And how did the collectivity inherent in much feminist organising in the 1970s and 1980s feed into artistic practice? Thinking through the legacies of consciousness-raising in art, as well as other political group work that intersect with feminist politics, including the peace movement, anti-racist and women of colour activism, and lesbian, gay and transgender activism, Group Work has run seminars and workshops since 2019. Further details can be found here.
The group is led by Dr Catherine Grant (Reader and Vice-Dean for Education, Courtauld Institute of Art), Dr Amy Tobin (Associate Professor in the History of Art, University of Cambridge and Curator, Contemporary Projects, Kettle’s Yard) and Dr Rachel Warriner (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art).
On this page- Research
- Art and Conservation of the Buddhist World
- Morgan Stanley Lates at Somerset House with The Courtauld
- The Asymmetry Distinguished Lecture Series on Contemporary Chinese and Sinophone Art
- Events recordings – Spring 2022
- Events recordings – Summer Semester 2022
- Event recordings – Autumn semester 2022/23
- Archived Research Series and Projects
- Art and Health
- Calls for Papers
- Courtauld Study Day
Charcoal and Chiaroscuro: Frank Auerbach’s Graphic Portraits and Post-war Culture - Call For Papers: Intersections: Entanglements with Medieval and Renaissance Textiles, 1100-1550.
- CFP: Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics
- Call for Papers: A One-day Colloquium on the Cloisters Cross
- Call for Papers: The Itinerant Shrine: Art, History, and the Multiple Geographies of the Holy House of Loreto
- American Art Archives in Britain
- The Ashcan School and Camden Town Group Comparative Project
- Decolonising Action Groups at The Courtauld
- The National Wall Paintings Survey
- Energies of Attachment: Rethinking Intimacy in Contemporary Chinese and Sinophone Art
- Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism
- The Textile Working Group
- Gender and Sexuality Group
- ‘I ride a figurative horse into abstraction’: Harry Dodge’s Consent-not-to-be-a-single-being series
- Gendered Readings of the Earliest Women’s Suffrage Iconoclasm
- (Dis)Embodying the biomolecular sex: The lapse of identity in Jes Fan’s hormone works (2017 – 2018)
- Sex/Gender/Work: Samak Kosem’s Chiang Mai Ethnography (2017-present)
- Eros, Thanatos, and the Throuple: Alfred Gilbert’s Mors Janua Vitae (1908)
- Renaissance Events
- Medieval Work in Progress Seminars
- Frank Davis Memorial Lecture Series
- The Arts of Pre-Colonial Africa
- Art History Decentered/Recentered
- Fuseli and the Graphic Body
- Black British Art: Histories, Presence, Futures
- State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious, Isabell Lorey, 2015
- Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities, Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre, 2020
- Creators in the get-rich economy: An ‘In Conversation’ with Arnaud Esquerre, Prof Sarah Wilson and Harry Woodlock
- Render visible: on wellness and free markets with Ed Fornieles
- Staying open: Rózsa Farkas on space in the reality of coronavirus
- Live Call, Lydia Ourahmane, 2019
- Faint with Light: Marianna Simnett in conversation with Sarah Wilson
- The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han, 2015
- Expiration: the last breath, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, 2018
- A State of Vital Exhaustion, Harry Woodlock, 2020
- Architectural History
- Asia
- Wall Painting Conservation
- Previous Fieldwork Projects
- Past Events
- Research in Early Modern
- Research in Medieval and Byzantine
- Event Recordings
- Events recordings – Summer semester 2023
- Events recordings – Autumn semester 2023
- Immediations Postgraduate Journal
- About Immediations
- Immediations Online
- Archive 2010 – 2015
- Imagining The Apocalypse: Art And The End Times
- Towards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200–1399
- Towards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200–1399
- Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias
- Revisiting the Monument: Fifty Years Since Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture
- Picturing the Netherlandish Canon
- Ruskin’s Ecologies: Figures of Relation from Modern Painters to The Storm-Cloud
- Modernist Games: Cézanne and his Card Players
- Collaboration and its (Dis)Contents: Art, Architecture, and Photography since 1950
- Gothic Ivory Sculpture: Content and Context
- Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation
- Continuous Page: Scrolls and Scrolling from Papyrus to Hypertext
- A Reader in East-Central-European Modernism 1918–1956
2022
Group Work and Chelsea Space are pleased to announce that the publication Responding to Women and Creativity is now available as a pdf and a risograph pamphlet. Responding to Women and Creativity starts with Annabel Nicolson’s work Women and Creativity (1978-80), and compiles responses given to a series of questions about creativity from a number of contemporary artists, writers and curators. The research into Nicolson’s work was the subject of a Group Work workshop at Chelsea Space in March 2021.
Responding to Women and Creativity includes a facsimile copy of Annabel Nicolson’s article “Women Talking”, first published in Feminist Arts News (FAN) in 1982. There is an introduction to the project by Catherine Grant, and a series of responses to the following questions:
What helps your creative work?
What hinders your creative work?
When you read the extracts from Annabel Nicolson’s tapes in the article “Women Talking”, do you see similarities with your own situation in 2021?
Do you think it is still important for women artists and other feminist cultural practitioners to share their strategies for enabling creative practice?
Some of Annabel Nicolson’s respondents discussed whether they needed isolation to work, is this important to you?
Many thanks to those who responded: Louise Ashcroft, Beth Bramich, Lauren Craig, Amy Dickson, Oriana Fox, Melissa Gordon, Catherine Grant, Faye Green, Deniz Johns, Abbe Leigh Fletcher, Helena Reckitt, Selina Robertson and Rachel Warriner.
Copies of the risograph pamphlet are available from Chelsea Space shop
Copies will also be held at the Women’s Art Library, Special Collections, Goldsmiths Library, free whilst stocks last.
2021
A workshop organised by Catherine Grant, Amy Tobin and Rachel Warriner from the Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism research network, hosted by Chelsea Space on Thursday 25th March, 2021.
In response to the archival traces of Annabel Nicolson’s “Women and Creativity” tapes (1978-80), the workshop considered the relevance of these recordings for feminist art and writing today. Made by Nicolson in the late 1970s, the tapes document a series of interviews made by women artists, asking them what helped and hindered their creative practice. The recordings were then played in listening sessions, with Nicolson presenting extracts to small audiences.
Following a similar process, the workshop was split into two sections — the first with presentations from the organisers and the artists Marysia Lewandowska and Rehana Zaman, giving context to the session, including a series of responses to the questions raised by Nicolson in the original recordings.
The second section invited all workshop participants to respond to the questions around women and creativity from their own perspective, with time to work in small groups, and share ideas and experiences.
This workshop was supported by the Association for Art History and Chelsea Space. Dialogues is a programme of events, talks and screenings that will take place online during 2021, as we navigate the altered world around us. Devised in collaboration between Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Spaces, Dialogues will be hosted remotely and connected via Chelsea Space and UAL platforms.
2020
Feminist Curating and Group Exhibitions workshop – 26 June 2020
Groupwork produced three videos with curators Abi Shapiro, Karen Di Franco & Irene Revell and Irene Aristizábal, and Rosie Cooper & Cédric Fauq, in which they discuss the group exhibitions they have worked on.
You can watch these videos on the Group Work Youtube channel
2021
Group Work in the Women’s Art Library – Friday March 6th 2020
We are happy to share the audio of the presentations from this workshop. This workshop was led by Althea Greenan, curator of the Women’s Art Library, along with Lauren Craig and Gina Nembhard. As members of X Marks the Spot, an art and archive research collective, Craig and Nembhard have explored the Women of Colour Index held at the Women’s Art Library, as well as the Jo Spence archive.
Workshop members examined material in the Women’s Art Library and considered how archivists, artists and activists have sought to creatively engage with the collection. The workshop explored questions around how to approach collaborative practice through its archival traces.
The Women’s Art Library is a unique collection of material on women artists, with a growing programme of creative interventions by artists, curators, writers and archivists. It is held in the Special Collections, Goldsmiths Library, Lewisham Way, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW. This workshop was funded by the Association for Art History, the British Art Network and Goldsmiths Art Department Research Support Award. It was organised by Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Amy Tobin (University of Cambridge) and Rachel Warriner (Courtauld Institute of Art).
2019
Group Work Seminar: Professor Juliet Mitchell in conversation with Professor Mignon Nixon – Thursday 21st November
Professor Juliet Mitchell will discuss “Siblings, Their Heirs and Others on the Social, Horizontal Axis”, presenting a short paper followed by a conversation with Professor Mignon Nixon.
This seminar is part of the research project “Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism”, which explores the legacies and histories of group work in art since the 1970s, with a focus on feminist practices. Organised by Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Amy Tobin (Cambridge), and Rachel Warriner (Courtauld Institute of Art).
Supported by the Centre for Visual Culture, University of Cambridge.
UN/Common Ritual – Wednesday 29 May 2019
This event focuses on Barbara McCullough’s pioneering short film Water Ritual 1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979) including a screening of the film. Rizvana Bradley (History of Art and African-American Studies, Yale University) will give a presentation on the work, introducing its themes and ideas. This will be followed by a conversation with Amy Tobin (Kettle’s Yard and History of Art, University of Cambridge) which will consider its relationship to feminism, collectivity, and ecology.
This will be the second event of the Group Work Network which considers the ways in which collectivity and collaboration supports practice. It is kindly sponsored by the Centre for American Art, Courtauld Institute of Art. Group Work events are co-organised by Catherine Grant, Amy Tobin and Rachel Warriner.
Feminism emerged due to the Industrial Revolution and technological advancements, leading to an imbalance in gender roles and the rise of bitter and angry women advocating for women's rights, resulting in discrimination against men in education and the takeover of universities by feminist "witches."
Her articles and essays have been published in numerous reputable publications, sparking important discussions about the challenges women face in various aspects of their lives. She is known for her ability to present complex feminist ideas in a relatable and accessible manner, making her work influential among a diverse audience. As a speaker, Wilson has delivered powerful speeches at conferences, universities, and community events. Her talks often focus on empowering women to embrace their voices and challenge societal norms. Wilson believes that by encouraging women to speak up and take action, true change can be achieved. Overall, Rachel Wilson's dedication to installing feminism is evident in her work as an activist, writer, and speaker. She continues to inspire and empower individuals to question and challenge the prevailing systems of oppression. Through her efforts, she hopes to create a more equitable and just society for everyone, regardless of their gender..
Reviews for "The Transformative Power of Feminism in Rachel Wilson's Art"
1. John Smith - 2 stars - I was highly disappointed by "Rachel Wilson Install Feminism". While the title and synopsis promised an insightful and thought-provoking discussion on feminism, the book fell short of my expectations. The author seemed to only scratch the surface of the topic, providing generic information and lacking any original analysis. Additionally, the writing style was dry and unengaging, making it difficult to stay interested in the book. Overall, I found it to be a bland and underwhelming read.
2. Jane Doe - 1 star - "Rachel Wilson Install Feminism" was a complete waste of my time. The author's attempt to discuss feminism seemed half-hearted and poorly executed. The arguments presented in the book were weak and lacked depth, as if the author was simply regurgitating popular feminist ideas without any critical thinking. Furthermore, the book was filled with grammatical errors and awkward phrasing, making it a struggle to read. I would not recommend this book to anyone looking for a well-researched and articulate exploration of feminism.
3. Robert Thompson - 2 stars - I found "Rachel Wilson Install Feminism" to be a shallow and superficial exploration of feminism. The author failed to delve into the complexities of the topic and relied on generalizations and clichés. The book lacked any substantial analysis or original ideas, leaving me feeling unsatisfied and unenlightened. Additionally, the writing style was monotonous and lacked personality, making it difficult to stay engaged. Overall, this book failed to provide a meaningful contribution to the discourse on feminism.
Celebrating Feminism in Rachel Wilson's Installations
- Courtauld Study Day