NEST: Network for Empowerment, Solidarity and Transregionality

NEST: Network for Empowerment, Solidarity, and Transregionality
On the occasion of its 10th anniversary, AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions initiates NEST: Network for Empowerment, Solidarity, and Transregionality an alliance of like-minded non-profit organizations (NGOs) and independent structures. Coming from various parts of the world, these organizations collaborate transnationally with the shared aim of highlighting women and non-binary artists and their work in the contemporary art worlds and the histories of art.

NEST is a transcultural network based on mutual support and learning, the exchange of feminist practices and methodologies, and aims to explore pressing questions on structural issues such as funding and sustainability as well as resistance under circumstances of political animosity. Through its actions, the NEST network will draw attention to archives and collective research done outside the institutional context to forge alternative methodologies and challenge dominant narratives. NEST promotes an intergenerational perspective and consists of entities that show a diversity of organizational structures, from membership-based organizations to research-based collectives.

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions will host participating NEST members for a two-day convening in Paris in November 2024, including a closed-door meeting held at the Villa Vassilieff as well as a public convening, titled “A Story Named Joy”, at the Palais du Tokyo on November 7.

A Story Named Joy
“A Story named Joy” marks the first gathering of NEST, bringing these non-institutional voices from diverse cultural contexts to enter in dialogue with audiences, focusing on practices that underscore the importance of collective work as a feminist strategy.

The title of the event, co-produced with the Palais de Tokyo, honors feminist filmmaker, composer and writer Trinh T. Minh-ha who will participate as a keynote speaker. Building on several months of exchange within three working groups, NEST members will present their work, their archiving practices and their approaches to highlight women and non-binary artists in the contemporary art worlds and the histories of art. The objective of this process is to unite forces and explore alternative methods of creating and disseminating knowledge, rethinking art through a feminist lens.

The discussions will conclude with a performance by Myriam Mihindou, the 2022 AWARE prize recipient, in dialogue with her personal exhibition Praesentia, co-created and co-produced by the Palais de Tokyo and the Crac Occitanie (Sète), co-produced by AWARE in collaboration with the DCA (French National Network of Contemporary Art Centres).

The participating members are: AFSAR: Asian Feminist Studio for Art & Research, A.I.R. Gallery, Archives des luttes des femmes en Algérie, Asia Art Archive, AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions, Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, City of Women, Contemporaines, DAVRA Collective, Fast Forward, Feminist Center for Creative Work, The Feminist Institute, Haven for Artists, Initiative for Practices and Visions in Radical Care, Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation (Secondary Archive), La Lleca, Mujeres en las Artes Visuales (MAV), Njabala Foundation, WOPHA: Women Photographers International Archive, Women’s Art Register, Zimbabwe Association of Female Photographers.

This network is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.