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We're in the Library!: welcoming creative practices, sharing responsibilities of access

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2024

Althea Greenan*
Affiliation:
Curator Women's Art Library, Special Collections Library Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross SE14 6NW UK Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article discusses how the Women's Art Library fosters creativity through the experience of the many artistic research practices hosted since the collection was installed in Goldsmiths University of London in the Library as a Special Collection.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of ARLIS

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References

1. Eichhorn, Kate. The Archival Turn in Feminism: Outrage in Order. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013Google Scholar.

2. Tate Britain, 8 November 2023 – 7 April 2024, National Galleries of Scotland, Modern 2, Edinburgh, 25 May 2024 - 26 January 2025, The Whitworth, University of Manchester, 7 March – 24 August 2025.

3. Grant, Catherine, and Love, Kate Random. Fandom as Methodology: A Sourcebook for Artists and Writers. Cambridge: Goldsmiths Press, 2019Google Scholar. Grant, Catherine. A Time of One's Own: Histories of Feminism in Contemporary Art. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022Google Scholar.

4. Caswell, Michelle, and Cifor, Marika. 2016. “From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in the Archives”. Archivaria 81 (May), 23-43Google Scholar. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13557

5. Jacqueline Cooke, “Art Ephemera, aka Ephemeral Traces of ‘Alternative Space’: The Documentation of Art Events in London 1995-2005, in an Art Library’” (Goldsmiths, 2007), http://eprints.gold.ac.uk/3475/.

7. Marcia Bennet, Claire Collison, Angela Edmonds, Caroline Hands, Freddie Robins, Kim Thornton. Each artist featured in the WAL App by 4 images bridging her practice from a slide in the WAL slide collection. The project was curated, designed and realized by Dr Ana-Maria Herman.

10. IBID, Caswell et al.

11. The group members were Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski, Gina Nembhard, Lauren Craig, Mystique Holloway and Zhi Holloway. The book is available as a PDF from the WAL and the project was supported by the Estate of Gillian Elinor.

12. The group had formed in 2011 to work on the Jo Spence archive project Not Our Class with Studio Voltaire and the Jo Spence project. Ego Ahaiwe-Sowinski has previously been a long time coordinator for the Lambeth Women's Project and has since worked on a number of important archives of black cultural figures.

13. Taking Charge: 5 monologues exploring the complexities of social identity, performed 21 May 2015 https://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=8761

14. Another critical project is the WOCI Reading Group. https://wocireadinggroup.wordpress.com/

15. Screenings include an outdoor projection at Goldsmiths, as part of the Show and Tell exhibition opening featuring the life and work of Rita Keegan and launching the book Human Endeavour: A creative finding aid for the Women of Colour Index October 2015. Subsequent screenings have taken place at The Showroom, 2016, Mining the Gap, Tate Britain, 2017, Viva Las Projectionistas, CCA Goldsmiths, 2019.

16. The Centre was renamed the Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies and moved to a less publicly accessible location in the university.

17. Code, Lorraine. Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations. New York; London: Routledge, 1995Google Scholar.

18. https://ritakeeganarchiveproject.com/2020/10/20/rita-in-the-bishops-library/ Also published in Keegan, Rita, Harle, Matthew, and Sowinski, Ego Ahaiwe. Mirror Reflecting Darkly: The Rita Keegan Archive. London: Goldsmith's Press, 2021Google Scholar.

19. Yes to the Work!, The Women's Art Library a film by Holly Antrum commissioned by Art360 Foundation, 2022.