(Film Still from Moolaadé (2004), directed by Ousmane Sembène.)

This month’s Target First Saturday events at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art here at the Brooklyn Museum includes a screening of the film Moolaadé. Directed by Ousmane Sembène, this award winning film tells the tale of six young girls who are about to be circumcised and the subsequent attempts to protect the girls from this trauma. “Moolaadé” is the name for the magical protection one of the village women uses on the girls to prevent their imminent circumcisions.

The showing of the film begins at 6pm and is followed by a discussion with Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, who has worked extensively with, and as an advocate for, circumcised women. If you can’t make it at six for the film, stroll on over to the galleries to see Ladan Akbarnia, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art here at the Brooklyn Museum, give a talk on Ghada Amer: Love Has No End at 7pm. Free tickets for both of these events are available at the Visitor’s Center at 5pm!

(Film Still from Moolaadé (2004), directed by Ousmane Sembène.)

A viewing and discussion of the film Suffragettes in Silent Cinema will be taking place this Saturday, June 21st, in the Forum of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. The panel will include Melissa Messina, curator of Votes for Women, writer and television producer Coline Jenkins, and the creator of the film, Dr. Kay Sloan. Premiered in 2003, Suffragettes in Silent Cinema includes propagandizing clips from silent films showing women engaging in extreme activities such as abandoning their babies and stealing bicycles in their pursuit of suffrage. This feminist, for one, cannot wait to see the fear of women’s empowerment so outrageously portrayed in these early films!

(Close up of Suffragettes riding float…New York Fair, Yonkers, 10 August 1913. Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

(Sara Rahbar, Hosein and I, Oppression Series #2 photo shoot, 2007. Courtesy of the artist.)

Working to further the dialogue between women and contemporary art, the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective is an organization that seeks to unite and provide resources for female artists of South Asian descent, bringing a crucial perspective to the forefront of the global feminist art world. This weekend, board members Mareena Dareida and Sadia Rehman, along with artists Sara Rahbar, Samira Abbassy, and poet Sarah Husain will participate in a panel discussion moderated by artist Miriam Ghani here at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art during the Brooklyn Museum’s Target First Saturday events. The panel will provide a taste of these artists work as well as spoken word in this precursor to the collective’s 10th anniversary exhibition, Sultana’s Dream, at Exit Art this August. The exhibition is named after a short story by Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, who presents an idealized role reversal in Muslim culture where it is the men, not the women, who are made to stay home and out of sight. Featuring collaborative artworks by Mareena Dareida, Sadia Rehman, Miram Ghani, Samira Abbassy, Shahzia Sikander and Chitra Ganesh, among others, the exhibition will also include a selection of South Asian musical and literary events scheduled throughout the course of the show.

(Shamira Abbassy, Calligraphic self-portrait, 2006. Courtesy of England Gallery)

Only a few brave souls have tackled the ballet body in the visual arts world. Eleanor Antin began the trend in 1986 with her work Recollections of my Life with Diaghilev, featuring a fictional persona, Eleanora Antinova, a dancer with Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. The exhibit featured photographs of Antin’s enchanting ballerina persona starring in various productions: Pocahontas, The Hebrews, Prisoner of Persia, L’Esclave and Before the Revolution.

Eleanor Antin. Pocahontas from Recollections of My Life with Diaghilev 1919-1929, 1977-1978. Courtesy: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts.

In this show, Antin’s prima ballerina Antinova mocks the glistening, sylph-like dancer in all of her glamorous glory. Antin pokes fun at the ballet ideal using her less than ideal ballet figure. Antin’s deliciously curvy physique and full facial features, though lusted after in contemporary society, are the ultimate “no no” in the ballet world. The ballet, to this day, is noted for its sylph-like women with ballet buns and legs for miles. Thus, Antin, or Antinova rather, infiltrates the dance world, challenging the typical dancing body and its impact on feminine ideals. Classic.

Eleanor Antin, The Hebrews from Recollections of My Life with Diaghilev1919-1929, 1977-1978. Courtesy: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts.

But there’s a new girl in town, and she’s depicting the ballet in a whole new light. Meghann Snow, a grad student at Parsons The New School for Design, shatters the typical depiction of the dancing body like a hammer to fine china, forcing the viewer to explore the moving female body with honesty rather than idealized societal expectations, to examine body in a grittier, more realistic manner.

Meghann Snow, The Ballet Finger, 2008. 5′x10′, acrylic house paint, oil slick, caulking on wood panel. Courtesy: Meghann Snow.

At first glance, Snow’s featured painting, The Ballet Finger, appears to be a pink, pulsing organ-perhaps a pancreas or a pair of kidneys. But when viewed with a critical eye, it becomes apparent that this work, oil on canvas, is a pointer finger,a small, but very important element in ballet technique. Snow selects certain body parts, fingers and feet, zooms in on these body parts and dissects them, revealing both the beautiful and grotesque elements of the female body. This examination lends to a sort of internal duel, a tug of war between the aesthetically appealing and the bodily blemishes.

Meghann Snow, Size 7, dimensions variable. Courtesy: Parsons The New School for Design, Department of Fine Arts.

Though not on view at The Kitchen, Snow’s work Size 7 kicks the typical ballet shoe up a notch. Snow wraps bare feet in various colorful industrial materials. They’re wrapped sort of messily in canary yellows and navy blues, patches of lime green and magenta. This messiness depicts the wear and tear of the dancing foot, the wear and tear of the dancing body and mind, the lack of glamour, the blood, sweat and tears wrapped up in one tiny shoe. Size 7 is winking with dualism: the sweet fervor of the dance world combined with the twinges of physical and emotional pain that sometimes exhaust the joy of movement.

Both Antin and Snow reveal the restrictive nature of the moving body, as well as the restrictive nature of feminine beauty ideals in general. These female artists, though from different generations, are challenging women to do away with perfection, and reclaim the beauty in those infamous measurements: 36-24-36.

Check out Snow’s work at her open studio at Parsons on Monday, May 12th from 6-8 pm! (25 E. 13th Street, Studio 31)

Free speech: some of us utilize it more than others, babbling faster than the speed of light. While others, meek as mice, prefer to keep our words to the bare minimum. But, Pia Lindman, a New York-based performance and installation artist, has boldly reorganized the way that we think about free speech in her Soapbox Event, granting each participant only one minute to speak.

Overhead view.  Pia Lindman: Soapbox Event, Reinventing Forms of Free Speech.  Federal Hall National Memorial, 26 Wall Street, New York City.  April 5, 2008.  Photo: Pia Lindman.  Courtesy: Pia Lindman.

Lindman received her MFA from Finland’s Academy of Fine arts, and received a second masters degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Over the years, Lindman has experimented with social and public space, challenging social, political and economic issues facing human beings globally. She has explored her interest in human masses, space and architecture through projects such as Three Cities, Rivers, Monuments (2002/2006) and Fascia (2006).

In her Soapbox Event, Lindman uses historical public spaces as venues for her art. She grants each participant a soapbox to stand on and sets her handy dandy timer for one minute. Participants can share just about anything in the time allotted; poetry, stories, monologues, movement sequences or articles. But there’s a catch: participants may form coalitions, stacking their soapboxes to create a higher podium. One minute is added to each coalition’s speaking time for each extra soapbox stacked. Now, this is a woman who understands the meaning of teamwork!

Side view.  Pia Lindman: Soapbox Event, Reinventing Forms of Free Speech.  Federal Hall National Memorial, 26 Wall Street, New York City.  April 5, 2008.  Photo: Pia Lindman.  Courtesy: Pia Lindman.

Lindman’s Soapbox Event is about more than getting your chat on. Lindman’s work forces participants to be conscious of one another, to share space, to communicate and listen. Her work is much more than a blab-fest: it challenges those involved to become more aware of their bodies in space, how bodies and voices relate to other bodies, how bodies and voices have the potential to affect the world.

The Soapbox Event is an ongoing project, taking place in public locations throughout New York City. The last event, held at the Federal Hall National Memorial in the Financial District reeled in 41 participants, a great success. Past Soapbox Events have taken place at Cooper Union, Yale School of Art and several other acclaimed venues.  To learn more about Pia Lindman’s upcoming events and her fascinating, thought provoking body of work visit the Soapbox Event Blog or check out Pia Lindman’s bio. Learn how to get involved and exercise your right to free speech.