Women in the tepee space

The Women's Art Environment, CSA Gallery, Christchurch : women in the tepee space.
[1977]

1 photograph : b&w ; 11 x 16 cm.

Notes:

Exhibition, 30 May-9 June 1977

1178

In 1977 the Women's Artists Group organized the Women's Art Environment at the Canterbury Society of Arts. The artists exhibiting included Joanna Paul and Allie Eagle. "The event was conceived as an opportunity for women to come together in one place to discover their particular identity as women, in a situation where their expression would be uninhibited by men. The exhibition was opened exclusively to women for the first five days ... The objects which remained on display after this were evidence of the deeply felt need of the participants to search for the sources of their identities as women"--The Press, 11 June 1977, p. 22

PhotoCD 7, IMG0037

Spiral, no. 3, 1978, p. 27   

[Copyright Christchurch Libraries]

Retrieved from http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Photos/Disc7/IMG0037.asp 3 November 2015

Spiral and beyond: Art and feminism in New Zealand

14 June - 10 August 2002, Hocken Library, cnr Anzac Avenue & Parry Street, Dunedin

1975 was the United Nations International Women's Year. To mark the event, Allie Eagle, then Mitchell, curated a special show of ‘6 Women Artists'. It was held at the Robert McDougall Gallery in Christchurch. It was the first exhibition to be organized on feminist principles and focusing on ideas about identity. Eagle had belonged to a collective of women artists and writers based in Christchurch who then went on to found the influential journal Spiral, that published poems, essays and art. This network of women shared ideas, journals and books, including the writings of such theorists as Lucy Lippard and artists like the U.S artists Judy Chicago and Mary Beth Edelson, whose work is included in the exhibition.
Gradually these women made contact with others of like-mind around New Zealand and organized exhibitions and events such as the 1977 A Seasons Diaries, organized by Joanna Paul, which brought together both professional and non-professional artists, as well as those who had never been involved in art-making before. In 1977 the Women's Artists Group also organized the Women's Art Environment at the Canterbury Society of the Arts. In 1980 the Women's Gallery was founded in Wellington by a collective that included Marian Evans, Anna Keir, Bridie Lonie, Rosemary Johnson and others.
This exhibition is a sampler, providing but a taste of the variety of women artists who were inspired by feminism to shake up the attitudes of the New Zealand art world, who thought that the work of women was worth celebrating and who broadened the approved subject matter of art.

Curated by Dr Judith Collard (Otago University Art History and Theory Department)

Retrieved from http://www.otago.ac.nz/library/hocken/exhibitions/otago039145.html 9 November 2015

Collard, J. (2006). Spiral women: Locating lesbian activism in New Zealand feminist art, 1975-1992.Journal of the History of Sexuality, 15(2), 292-320. [note to self/ves - look this up]