Criptic Critic Conscience and Known for it

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Wellywood Woman: They might have completely forgotten us

Wellywood Woman: They might have completely forgotten us:
  • You like this.
  • Wells Tao " The Wellington Media Collective will be remembered for its contribution to three major success stories of New Zealand political activism: the anti-Apartheid movement, notably opposition to the 1981 Springbok Tour; the campaign against nuclear testing in the Pacific; and the Maori Rights movement and Maori Renaissance following the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1981.

    I gasped. Surrounded by artefacts from the women's movement, I couldn't believe what I read. Was the women's movement in all its diversity not 'a major success story'? Or had the curators of the exhibition not looked carefully at the content of the posters and the list of organisations that the Media Collective worked with? Did they not know about – for instance – Robyn Kahukiwa's and Debra Bustin's connections to the women's art movement through the Women's Gallery, and in Robyn's case through Haeata, primarily part of the Te Puawaitanga?"
  • Wells Tao "No artists' names attributed to the Women's Gallery posters. (Mechanism: Belittling carelessness with women's work – the date of publication easily established online and the posters' makers readily established through straightforward research at the Turnbull Library or by making a couple of phone calls.) The label for Women Under Capitalism, which referred to its exhibition 'at an event put on by a women's trade union group' – what group? It wouldn't have been hard to find out its name. (Mechanism: Ignoring us.) And the complete absence of posters from at least one outstanding woman poster-maker who often chose to be anonymous. (Mechanism: Ignoring us.) I went home and DM'd her. Has she seen the show? Was I overreacting? She messaged back – 
     
    Yes I felt a bit peeved that [our groups] didn't get a mention, but it was quite a select group of people, not that the other women weren't feminists. I think they might have completely forgotten that we used their resources..."
  • Matthew Williams · 30 mutual friends
    God I'm so sick of you

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