Welcome to MAI issue 6 - Crisis-Connection-Culture: Alternative Responses to Covid-19

Dearest Readers,

It’s rather hard to find words to introduce MAI Focus Issue 6. We had not planned for it back in January—for we did not know that any of ‘this’ would happen. Global and ongoing events from COVID-19 to the Black Lives Matter protests have served as a pressing reminder that in times of crisis, it is always the lives of society’s most vulnerable that are at exponentially higher risk. And, if the mark of society at large is how it treats those most at risk during parlous moments in history, recent events have given us all much to say and protest against insensitive governments and institutions which have sought systematically to prioritise profit over care.

The events of 2020—perhaps more so than any other year in recent collective memory—have served to reveal the fault lines, cracks and fissures in neo-liberal capitalism—under which we are all living—and the incontrovertible damage this visits upon the majority of human lives; predictably, we have also paid witness to how an egregiously wealthy corporate elite profit off of disaster and crisis.

Working with many precious members of our MAI collective, we put together this current issue amid this global pandemic. And, we are proud that despite the dreariness of our times, the omnipresent fear and day-to-day uncertainty, both feminist work and women’s art continue to thrive against all odds.

Here, you will find creative responses that speak to states of hope, holding patterns, illness, loss and anger. You will read insightful critiques of the ways in which this illness has forced us all into positions of radical re-assessment of the future, and how genuinely inventive we can become during such uncertain times, whether we consider our immediate domestic surroundings or analyse this within the broader context of culture and society. What all these pieces have in common is the creation and longing for new ways of living in the face of an unknown future.

We are incredibly grateful to our co-editor Leanne Dawson who first came up with the idea for this issue, put together the call for papers, and then created the special dossier published here that focuses on feminist work orientated towards intersectional inclusivity and diversity. The articles you find inside this dossier constitute important and diverse evidence of what it has felt like to live (and work) through COVID-19. Deej Senghore has also provided invaluable help and support to both Leanne and the MAI team at large throughout the process of putting this part of the special issue together. We thank both of them heartily for their vital and committed work. Please look out for Leanne’s collaboration with fellow MAI board member Leshu Torchin and some of the authors who have contributed to this issue in the ongoing Playlist initiative from St Andrew’s University (Centre for Screen Cultures).

Also, part of this issue is another dossier of creative pieces devoted broadly to the theme of motherhood. Taken together, these articles constitute an attentive and tender ‘thinking through’ motherhood. They explore cardinal themes of care, emotional devotion, labour, identity and illness. We feel that inadvertently they speak to many of the themes explored in the aforementioned articles that centre on the ongoing COVID-related crisis. If patriarchal governments globally have failed us of late (to put it mildly), the motifs of reparation, creation and loving attention, so starkly at the forefront here, offer a tentative alternate philosophy to the meretricious, short-term and greedy strategies espoused by so many ethically bankrupt political leaders. We are incredibly grateful to our second co-editor, Sophia Kier-Byfield for her dedicated work in bringing together these wonderful pieces with such care and compassion. Our gratitude is also given to Jessica Tillings and to Amy McCauley, both of whom also contributed time and effort towards forming this special creative section.

Finally, we thank our third co-editor Houman Sadri for his tireless work to help us edit all of these texts in preparation for publication. His generosity and effort have alleviated the burden of our labour at MAI. This issue would not have been possible without his input.

So, without further ado, we offer MAI 6 to you. We hope that you will find comfort and solace here, but most crucially, we hope it makes everyone out there who may be reading us feel less alone during this extraordinary moment in history. There has already been incalculable loss and heartbreak this year. Although the end is not in sight, we do believe that in the wake of tragedy, communities can be formed; that loss can foment global action, and that righteous anger can shift even the most seemingly intransigent of tides.

If ever there was a time to push back, Dear Readers, it is now: the moment of change is upon us.

 

In solidarity,

 

Anna Backman Rogers & Anna Misiak

Gothenburg, Sweden & Falmouth, UK.

‘Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives’ from the Perspective of a Woman of Colour

by

Critical Reflection

Reflecting on her personal experience, Parker considers why the ‘Stay at Home’ campaign failed to connect with the BAME community in the UK.

1

Culture in Crisis: A Guide to Access, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Festivals, Arts, and Culture

by

Critical Reflection

Dawson outlines inclusion measures to make festivals and arts/cultural events more accessible for minority and disadvantaged groups: people with disabilities, working-class, those in poverty, and parents and carers.

2

Navigating Race and A Lack of Imagination and Vision

by

Critical Reflection

Black Lives Matter (BLM) generated a vital shockwave across the film industry and its racism. But what happens when this white industry starts to forget and reverts to business as usual?

3

Unmasking Inequality: An Arts-Based Feminist Response to a Global Pandemic

by

Critical Reflection

Kent’s feminist response to the COVID-19 crisis straddles visual arts and comics. She contemplates the intersections of the pandemic and social inequalities and expresses these through creative, critical imagery.

4

Working Motherhood During Covid-19: Screen Time and Pre-Schoolers

by

Critical Reflection

The pandemic has intensified our use of screens. Some have expressed concern about this. Ramsay reflects on how screen time can also facilitate connection and learning.

5

A Holiday from the Facts: Watching Doordarshan under Lockdown

by

Critical Reflection

During the lockdown, India’s public service broadcaster, Prasar Bharati decided to bring back old TV classics. Bhattacharya argues that this was a clever strategy to reconsolidate state hegemony.

6

#daughterfail

by

Creative Practice

When a queer’s mother moves into a nursing home, revelations occur but COVID-19 thwarts a reunion.

7

Girls Shift Digital: Reflecting on the Impact of Moving Online in Girls’ Creative Youth Projects

by & Sarah Ralph

Critical Reflection

McBride & Ralph offer an account of the processes and challenges of adapting specifically girl-centric creative-cultural programmes to the UK’s lockdown conditions.

8

A Praxis of Action: Scrub Making and Solidarity during the UK Lockdown

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Critical Reflection

During the lockdown, Sutton put her skills to make scrubs for those in desperate need, but she didn’t quite realise the enormity of the task she had decided to undertake.

9

Touching the Untouchable: Connecting, Ethical Caring, and Teaching during Covid 19

by & Ann Gagné

Critical Reflection

In the age of COVID-19, the removal of human touch has meant that many have had to consider new ways of connecting. How do we navigate our way through the world and around other bodies now?

10

Curating (Queer) Film Archives and Creating Online Communities in Times of the Pandemic: The Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images

by

Interview

Anna Linder from SAQMI talks to Dagmar Brunow about the challenges of curating queer film and video art during the COVID-19 pandemic.

11

Weird Little Quarantine Girl

by

Creative Response

Dashdorj-Escobar contemplates what isolation and connection might mean during the lockdown in our peculiarly digital age.

12

Some Visual Thoughts On Immunity & Water

by

Critical Reflection

As Lesham washes her hands, the water running through her fingers prompts reflection on the symbolism of water that can guard, or dissolve social barriers or forge brand new connections.

13

What Could Abolitionist Feminist Cinema Be?

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Creative Response

In the midst of COVID-19 crisis, inspired by The Movement 4 Black Lives, Mahan shares criticism of American cinema and proposes radical changes to the current film industry.

14

Áine (2020)

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Creative Response

Harper reflects on intense loss, grief and craft, as she shares a deeply personal design, which she completed in the midst of the pandemic.

15

The Long March Home

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Creative Response

Sharma offers a heartfelt artistic tribute to ‘invisible’ migrant workers and their hardships during the lockdown in India.

16

Ankahi (Unspoken) Year: 2020

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Creative Response

From her personal perspective in these two delicate and minimal poems, Sinha captures the intangible, futile ambience of 2020.

17

My Brother Likes Green Apples, Not Red Apples

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Creative Response

Hoping for a systemic change to how autism is socially approached, Dear writes a sincere poem observing her brother’s anxiety around the daily news and food in the time of pandemic.

18

Gaze Light & Cheek Gaze

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Creative Practice

Wuon-Gean Ho’s creative practice is in tension with the dematerialisation of the body in the digital world. She posits the existence of a gaze that emanates from the face and is received by the cheeks.

19

Stillness in Paintings

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Creative Practice

This series of paintings, on which Bishop has been working during COVID-19, constitutes a performative and deliberate attempt to hold and reckon with a turbulent inner emotional world whilst welcoming in stillness and silence.

20

There Are Gaps Between These Things

by

Creative Practice

Milliken offers a piece of hybrid writing that explores the reparative potential of gaps in times of turmoil.

21

Gorvik

by

Creative Practice

Through mindful, ritualistic daily walks and artistic practice, Alvestad Lopez documents and works with the Icelandic landscape on Gorvik. Here she connects a series of photographs to COVID-19 and a renewed consideration of our environment.

22

In Conversation with The Black Motherhood Project

by , Ayo Osobamiro & Onyekachi Iwu

Interview

MAI meets the makers of The Black Motherhood Project (2021) to talk about the documentary and the acute need to tell the stories of black mothers and daughters in the current cultural climate.

23

Subjects of Maternity

by

Creative Practice

Allowing little Klara to ruin her drawings, Pospislova-Kralova embraces her daughter’s ‘improvements’ to her work as a metaphor for the challenges and gifts of parenthood.

24

First Trimester

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Creative Practice

Inspired by Martianism, Hounat’s poetic writing simulates the feeling of a woman’s alienation from her body as she first experiences morning sickness.

25

Final Round

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Creative Response

Solari presents a series of compassionate vignettes—seemingly mundane observations from the time when she was saying the final goodbye to her mother.

26

Motherhood & Multiple Sclerosis: A Photo Essay

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Creative Practice

Sprecher’s touching photo essay featuring her mum’s morning routines is a song of praise to motherhood that proves stronger than any illness or physical disability.

27

The Battleground: Fieldnotes from la maternité

by

Creative Practice

Inspired by Goethe’s ‘delicate empiricism’, Maggie Nelson and Sontag, Crossman’s fieldnotes from the maternity ward offer a roaming inquiry, a visceral record of the first hours and days after giving birth.

28

Beholding Blue & Seeing Red: A Downward Story in Six Movements

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Critical Reflection

Inspired by Van Der Weyden’s painting and Emin’s installation, Ulldemolins reflects on passive motherhood in the grand Christian story.

29

Alice

by

Creative Response

Through a series of photographs, Davey uncovers her relationship with her daughter Alice who has Down syndrome. This unusual confession speaks to our social and personal fear of ‘difference’.

30

Linda Manz (1961-2020)

by

In Memoriam

Marlo de Lara reflects on Linda Manz and her untimely passing to celebrate how she empowered outsiders, misfits, and underdogs of this world.

31

Days of Linda

by

In Memoriam&Video Essay

Days of Linda is a videographic tribute to Manz’s central authorial contributions to Days of Heaven (1978), as directed by Terrence Malick.

32

Lynn Shelton (1965-2020)

by

In Memoriam

Fox interviewed Shelton for MAI in 2019. Here, he reflects on both her tragic passing and the wonderful and lasting legacy she leaves behind.

33

Her Story: On the Possibilities of Trans Short Form Media

by

Critical Reflection

 Her Story’s production and streaming demonstrate the potential for wider audience engagement. But can trans stories become mainstream?

34

In Conversation with Rachelle Beinart

by

Interview

MAI meets a stunt woman, Rachelle Beinart to talk about unconscious gender bias in the film industry and her desire to inspire other young women to enter her profession.

35

Deviant Women: Embodied Archives, Living Documents

by & Fenia Kotsopoulou

Creative Response

In their cross-media project, Kotsopoulou & Walsh demonstrate how today’s photographic & performance practices can challenge patriarchy by referring to the history of documenting ‘deviance’ in women.

36

Figure a Motion: MAI in Conversation with Jazmine Linklater

by & Vahni Capildeo

Interview

Jazmine Linklater talks to Vahni Capildeo about her exciting new poetry pamphlet Figure a Motion.

37

Finding the Artist: The Role of the Feminist Detective

by

Critical Reflection

A creative research investigation into the output of British artist Marion Adnams led Forde’s detective work to broader feminist conclusions.

38

Pick Me Up: Poems and Extracts from Briefing Notes and Exchanges

by & Harriet Lee-Merrion

Creative Response

Kiernan & Lee-Merrion present notes on two poems to demonstrate their contextual and gender reflection that inspired their poetry book in 2014.

39

Notes on reading Riemke Ensing’s Watermarks or Gesturing Towards a Metamodern Self

by

Book Review

Dumitrescu’s mediative reading of Ensing’s Watermarks turns into a metaphysical reflection on the materiality and intellectual nature of our reading experiences.

40

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WHO SUPPORTS US

The team of MAI supporters and contributors is always expanding. We’re honoured to have a specialist collective of editors, whose enthusiasm & talent gave birth to MAI.

However, to turn our MAI dream into reality, we also relied on assistance from high-quality experts in web design, development and photography. Here we’d like to acknowledge their hard work and commitment to the feminist cause. Our feminist ‘thank you’ goes to:


Dots+Circles – a digital agency determined to make a difference, who’ve designed and built our MAI website. Their continuous support became a digital catalyst to our idealistic project.
Guy Martin – an award-winning and widely published British photographer who’s kindly agreed to share his images with our readers

Chandler Jernigan – a talented young American photographer whose portraits hugely enriched the visuals of MAI website
Matt Gillespie – a gifted professional British photographer who with no hesitation gave us permission to use some of his work
Julia Carbonell – an emerging Spanish photographer whose sharp outlook at contemporary women grasped our feminist attention
Ana Pedreira – a self-taught Portuguese photographer whose imagery from women protests beams with feminist aura
And other photographers whose images have been reproduced here: Cezanne Ali, Les Anderson, Mike Wilson, Annie Spratt, Cristian Newman, Peter Hershey