A DIFFRACTIVE READING OF FEMINIST ART PRACTICES

Nina Bandi

Starting from the concept of diffraction as it was proposed by Donna Haraway (1997) and taken up by Karen Barad (2007), how can we envisage a (queer)feminist position that is at the same time non representational but affirmative and enabling relations that are characterised by care and solidarity? I would like to apprehend this question with a philosophical analysis of several examples of feminist art practices from the 1970s onwards starting with Womens Work, a collection of verbal instruction scores by 16 multidisciplinary artists, co-edited by Alison Knowles and Annea Lockwood in New York City in 1975. I thereby propose a way of thinking the feminist inter- and delinking alongside decolonial and black thought on aesthetics and performativity. While focusing on artistic practices this argument also revisits current conceptualisations of knowledge production and knowledge practices from a feminist viewpoint.

Nina Bandi is a philosopher and political theorist who is interested in the overlapping of speculative thought, aesthetic practices, and political questions. Based in Zurich and Vienna, she works on topics including the relation between gender, race, and technology. She is a PhD-researcher at the Lucerne School of Art and Design within the research project ‘What Can Art Do?’ funded by the Swiss National Research Fund