Trailblazers: feminisms, camera in hand and archive over the shoulder

The Cité internationale des arts, in partnership with the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir and as part of the 2023 edition of the Festival d’Automne, presents the group exhibition Trailblazers: feminisms, camera in hand and archive over the shoulder.

Curated by Nicole Fernández Ferrer and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, the exhibition looks back at the cultural and visual history of feminism in France in the 1970s and 1980s through the founding in 1982 of the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir by 3 women—Delphine Seyrig, Carole Roussopoulos and Ioana Wieder, members of the collective Les Insoumuses [Defiant Muses]. Their videos, along with videos by other filmmakers and feminist collectives provide a map of the struggles of the time while documenting and participating in them. 

Trailblazers: feminisms, camera in hand and archive over the shoulder offers a vision of the fight for women’s emancipation by comparing these images, filmed and broadcast thanks to the first video cameras and portable video recorders, with different practices by contemporary artists, some of whom are still active today. Martha Wilson, Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki, Myriam Mihindou, Nil Yalter, Rada Akbar, Bouchra Khalili, Zanele Muholi, Saddie Choua, Lili Reynaud Dewar and Paula Valero Comín, have been or are currently in residence at the Cité internationale des arts.

As a laboratory of ideas and a place of artistic mobility par excellence, the Cité internationale des arts, with this project, presents the plurality in all its forms of the visions held by people who identify as women. Feminism, and in particular ecofeminism, will be in the spotlight in Trailblazers: feminisms, camera in hand and archive over the shoulder, which continues the dialogue between generations of feminist video-makers and artists whose history can be traced back to that of the Cité internationale des arts, the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir and the Festival d’Automne.

At a time when the condition of women and LGBTQIA+ people is worsening in many parts of the world, this exhibition brings together contemporary works alongside historical ones, images from the first video cameras and portable video recorders focusing on the struggle of women and the LGBTQIA+ community for emancipation and their transnational fight for freedom.

Participating artists ­­
Rada Akbar, Leonor Antunes, Claire Atherton, Chimurenga, Saddie Choua, Françoise Dasques, Micha Dell-Prane, Catherine Deudon, Marie-Dominique Dhelsing, Anne Faisandier, Martine Franck, Sami Frey, Sophie Keir, Bouchra Khalili, Maria Klonaris et Katerina Thomadaki, Eugenie Kuffler, Guy Le Querrec, Myriam Mihindou, Kate Millet, Zanele Muholi, Lur Olaizola, ORLAN, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Megan Rossman, Nadja Ringart, Carole Roussopoulos, Paul Roussopoulos, Eszter Salamon, Abraham Ségal, Delphine Seyrig, Paula Valero Comín, Ioana Wieder, Martha Wilson, Nil Yalter.

With contributions by
Ti-Grace Atkinson, Mary Barnes, Coordination des femmes noires, Pierre Jouannet, Yvette Roudy, Awa Thiam.

Curated by Nicole Fernández Ferrer, co-president of the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Arts & Culture Programme Manager at the Cité internationale des arts.

An exhibition organized in partnership with the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir as part of the Festival d’Automne 2023 and with the support of the Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian—Délégation en France.