Why am I a feminist? What does it mean to be a feminist today? What role has art played in the process of social change? These are the questions we intend to address in this exhibition, which looks at feminism as the greatest revolutionary movement of the contemporary era, a movement that seeks to redress the age-old, cultural and universal injustice of having denied the rights of more than half of the world's population. Feminism, in the 21st century, has required us to change laws, customs, history, science, vocabulary, relationships and life itself, because we were (and are) a society crippled by gender inequality. Delving into the study of the difficulties of the feminist movement is a fascinating process that should awaken, more than an interest, a need to discover where women are in history, in science, in art?

The transformative power of art is not a utopia, and feminist activism uses art as an agent of change, of active and democratic protest. Hence the need to investigate the feminist genealogies of contemporary art, to reconstruct its referents and to put a name to some artists who not only placed inequality and gender-based violence at the centre of the critical discourse, but who also did so with the new languages of art from the 1970s onwards. They transgressed the concept of fine art, being pioneers of textile art, audiovisuals, performance and body art.

Aware of the important background of critical and feminist museology, this exhibition aims to turn “Las Bigas” Hall into a space for social and democratic debate, reflection and rethinking of questions we take for granted about feminism, based on a selection of different interventions and works by ten international artists who make up the Equality Portal Collective. This association, formed by artists and professionals from the world of culture, has the main objective of promoting equality in museums, education and the art market, and proposes the incorporation of an equality portal in the web spaces of the institutions as a strategy to raise awareness about a process that affects both the art collections and museum management.

These works or art installations have been part of other important feminist exhibitions over the last twenty years, and now, for the first time together, they establish a new visual and conceptual itinerary that, in addition to the social and political demands of historical feminism, incorporates the role of art history in the process of reclaiming women silenced by patriarchy.   

An international relationship is also established with the Cátedra Nómada of the University of São Paulo, with the mural intervention mujeres na luz, with posters by more than fifteen Brazilian and Spanish artists, which aims to link São Paulo with Valencia and open a door to hope and to the future from a postcolonial and porous feminism that embraces other collectives, minorities that lead us to think anew: Why am I a feminist?

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Mau Monleón

Mar Caldas

Manola Roig

Yolanda Herranz Pascual

Celeste Garrido Meira

Rosa Mascarell Daurer

Amparo Zacarés Pamblanco

Lilian Amaral

Bia Santos

Alissia-Maria Penalva-Leal