Phase 2 is almost at it's end - everyone is returning to Fieldbase throughout the day tomorrow and we cannot wait to hear the stories of everyones treks, environmental and community phases. Pictures and updates to come, but just to say that all teams have made incredible progress on their projects with the 3 trek teams completing over 270kms of terrain and we are proud to say we have finished our water project in Matapalo - an amazing achievement provding safe and clean water to families that were without it before. And so to the art from Phase 2:
Artist’s Blog:
International Women's Day: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?
Linda Nochlin, the American art historian, in 1971 published a seminal essay entitled 'Why Are There No Great Female Artists?'.
Guerilla Girls
Nochlin's essay not only tackled gender imbalance in the visual arts, but, presented her thoughts as part of a wider, socio-cultural issue; after all, it is visuality which is one of the key modes by which gender is culturally-inscribed into our society. The article offered an overview on the position of women both as practitioners and subjects.
Her motivation was to challenge the assumptions of traditional divisions, made in view of historical situations; put simply, she wanted to address how the domination of white male subjectivity throughout history, influences how 'we' interpret women within art and in society at large. The potency of the male-orientated stance influenced culture, Nochlin believed, because of the fact that it was often unacknowledged and thereby assumed as within the 'natural' order of things.
Nochlin's view on women's equality within art, as well as in other professional fields, omitted any blame on individual men, nor did she idolize particular women, but shone the spotlight on the nature of our institutional structures and the way people are educated within these remits; the supernatural powers of the 'Artist', emboldened from birth, nurtured by Mother Nature herself: an oft-repeated monologue, exemplified in Ancient Greek written sources, and found still, in early twentieth-century literature.
The temptation with any such question is to reel off lists of women artists that have been forgotten or previously ignored within the canon of art history. There's no denying that such arguments offer us a considerate amount of knowledge, but the risk is that by attempting to answer 'why are there no great women artists', it subtly reinforces the negative implications and overlooks the assumptions lying behind the question.
Often the problem rests not on what femininity is, and what being a woman artist entails, but primarily on the misconception of what essentially art is. It is somewhat naïve to think that art is a personal expression of individualism, autonomous from political circumstance: a translation of personal life into visual terms. The making of art involves a self-consistent language of form from defined social conventions, which are learnt within the limits of ones environment.
Asking 'why there have not been great female artists' questions the very concept of historicism, whilst recognising other social injustices, i.e. race and nationality (the limited representation of African-American artists, for example). When you start thinking about the 'why' you begin to realise to what extent our outlook on life, and what is 'normal' and 'usual', is conditioned.
Guerilla Girls
One attempt at rectifying the sparsity of women artists has been to answer Nochlin's question by asserting a different kind of 'greatness' to women's art that emphasises an identifiable feminine style, which seems reasonable enough: after all, women's experience and situation in society differ from men's. The problem is that correlating styles of women artists generally is futile, insomuch as attempting to do the same for women in other fields, is equally pointless. In every instance, they would seem to be closer to other artists of their own period and outlook than to each other. Even categorising in terms of subject matter is problematic. Any 'traditional' and 'feminine' scenes have been the subject of male observance; Renoir and Monet consistently depicted domestic life and children, for example, throughout their careers.
It's also important to address how misconceptions of femininity at large, affect men. By retaining limitations on women, opportunities for men pervade traditionally 'feminine' roles, such as nursing or child-rearing, diminish; emotional realms remain largely out of bounds.
Nochlin concludes that 'why have there been no great women artists' is simply the tip of the iceberg. Clouded in misconception, underneath lies contentious ideals on the nature of art and human ability in general.
'What is important', concluded Nochlin, 'is that women face up to the reality of their history and of their present situation, without making excuses or puffing mediocrity... Rather, using as a vantage point their situation as underdogs in the realm of grandeur, and outsiders in that ideology, women can reveal institutional and intellectual weaknesses... and at the same time that they destroy false consciousness, take part in the creation of institutions in which clear thought-true greatness-are challenges open to anyone, man or woman, courageous enough to take the necessary risk, the leap into the unknown.'
Nochlin, Linda, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, Art News 69 (January 1971), pp. 22-39.
Phase 2 Nicaragua Road Trip
On every phase, there are several road trips to visit all the Raleigh X-Rays. I, along with 'Logistics' Alice and Vanessa and Jess from Admin, embarked on a tour of the Nicaragua groups, visiting X-Rays 8, 10, 7 & 6 in Cabo Blanco, San Ramon, Miraflor and Achuapa.
We spent a few days with X-Ray 10 in the beautiful town of San Ramon, where they are currently building a pre-school for the community. Laden with paints, and more pencils than you can shake paintbrush at, we set about decorating one side of the existing school’s exterior wall. X-Ray 10’s Artist, Jess, did a fantastic job at co-ordinating the group; both she and Luke entertained the local children with some face-painting, although some felt that this wasn’t ambitious enough, and requested that their back be decorated instead! The Fieldbase team left the group in high spirits (and with most of the paints), with a plan to continue with the mural and to get the schoolchildren involved in another one. Excellent job guys!
Miraflor
After a fantastic couple of days with X-Ray 8, Thelma & Louise, plus two, drove up to Miraflor to see X-Ray 10 and their housing projects. Using what is known as ‘Adobe’, which is a mixture of mud and a moss commonly known as ‘old man’s beard’, the mixture is moulded, dried and then used as bricks. Before our departure from Fieldbase, the request from the group was that we do an art project involving the Adobe components. As it involved the prospect of being very messy there was no objection!
With this in mind, I took inspiration from the Pre-Columbian stone spheres found in sites across Costa Rica, to which archaeologists know very little of their origins and use. Otherwise known as Las Bolas, their anomalistic state has resulted in theories relating to cosmology and mathematics, but these have been inconclusive. What they do reveal is the engineered expertise of the communities who made them; some are said to be perfect dimensionally. The ‘bolas’ are made from limestone, sandstone or basalt and are believed to have been produced between 200 B.C and 1500 A.D by a Diquis culture.
With the help of Ben, Jess and Emily, we set about making a giant mud ball which we then inscribed with images relating to the group’s experience of Miraflor; even Don José, who is one of the foremen and recipient of one of the houses being built! We allowed it to set a little and in the morning took a few pots of paint down and covered our bolas in an array of colours. Slowly the paint seeped into the sphere and our drawings began to show through. It looked stunning against the Miraflor backdrop.
Ben, Jess and Emily getting the ball rolling, literally
Don José lending a hand
Matt inspecting the end result
Our last stop in Nicaragua was the community of Matapalo in Achuapa. Our visit coincided with International Women’s Day and X-Ray 7 had prepared an afternoon of activities to mark the occasion, consisting of making flower garlands, face-painting and a game of pin-the-donkey.
