Alliances

This film explores the legacy, fifty years on, of the women's liberation movement in Paris which began after the uprisings of May 1968 and addresses the question: to what extent were decolonial political projects entangled with the womens liberation movement, and what are the insufficiencies with the way the womens movement is commonly historicised in this regard? Artist, Alex Martinis Roe, brought ten committed feminists in different sectors in Paris together and generated narratives with them about race politics in the women's movement from 1968 to today. The film employs a particular feminist historiographic model developed by the artist, which uses the situated knowledge and specific genealogies of the projects contributors to answer the projects research question, rather than grand narratives. The film focusses on two double biographies - an entangled biography exploring the relationship between one contributor to the Alliances project and her nominated feminist forebear - which through their juxtaposition and editing method, explore the complexity of the relation between feminism that is not based on identity, and decolonial activism. In this exhibition, the film is presented within a custom built interior architectural installation, which also displays another work, 'It was about opening the very notion that there was a particular perspective.' The display/seating structure is designed to facilitate encounters and discussion around the films, and becomes the setting for a performance-based salon which engages new interlocutors in the project. This installation and performance-based salon are listed as a separate research output, because although the film works act as resources in their development, together they form an independent work.