Affirmative Practices – An Encounter

With Marirì Martingengo, Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective, Laura Minguzzi, Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective, Iris van der Tuin, Gender Studies and Philosophy of Science, Utrecht University, Alex Martinis Roe, Fellow of the Graduate School for the Arts, UdK. Hosted and organised by Alex Martinis Roe.

An encounter between two generations of practitioners, who all participate in the production of feminist history, theory or art, and who engage with a common genealogy of thought on sexual difference. Exploring the relationship of recent new feminist materialist accounts of processes of “sexual differing” to earlier Italian and French philosophies and political practices of sexual difference, will provide a way of engaging both generations together now to construct speculative feminist futures.

Biographies

Marirì Martinengo, born in Liguria and now elderly, lives and works in Milan, where she taught literature in schools. Since 1980 she has taken regular shifts as a cashier at the Milan Women's Bookstore and participated in its other relational, political and cultural activities and those of its club, Circolo della rosa. In the 80’s she implemented especially designed programs at the school where she was teaching, with particular attention to the education of girls through the application of a pedagogia della differenza (pedagogy of difference). She then subsequently devoted herself to historical research on female Occitan poets and published her work on Hildegard von Bingen and her letters, among others (le Trovatore 1996). She then dedicated herself to researching the poignant story of her paternal grandmother, her writing on which has given rise to the practice and theory of storia vivente (living history). She is currently researching the topic "An opportunity to be grasped: the invention of old age” with a group of women. News about her can be found on the internet under the heading Marirì Martinengo.

Laura Minguzzi was born in Ravenna in 1949 and lives in Milan. She graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Ca 'Foscari in Venice, with a thesis on women's and feminist movements in Russia. Since it began, she has participated in the Movimento di Pedagogia della differenza (Pedagogy of Difference Movement), founded by Marirì Martinengo. In Sapere di sapere (Knowing to Know) (1995) she wrote about this experience. Since 2001, she has been the editor of the Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective’s website (www.libreriadelledonne.it) and the president of the collective’s club Circolo della rosa. With Serena Fuart she published a supplement to No. 84 of the collective’s magazine Via Dogana entitled, Così via in un circolo di potenza illimitato (And so on in a circle of unlimited power) 2008. She is part of the Comunità di storia vivente (Community of Living History) , which was initiated by Martinengo, and with whom she has published her research on the medieval abbess Euphrosyne-the-Pure in Libere di Esistere (Free to Exist) (1996). In 2012, The Community of Living History published a selection of their theoretical writings in No. 3 (95) DWF (DonnaWomanFemme) magazine.

Iris van der Tuin was born in Heerenveen (the Netherlands) in 1978, lives in Amsterdam and teaches Gender Studies and Philosophy of Science at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Iris has edited Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture (Routledge, 2009) with Rosemarie Buikema and wrote New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies (Open Humanities Press, 2012) with Rick Dolphijn. She has edited a special issue on 'Feminist Matters: The Politics of New Materialism' with Peta Hinton (Women: A Cultural Review, 2014). Her forthcoming book is Generational Feminism: Advanced Introduction to a Generative Approach (Lexington Books, 2014). Her articles have appeared in among others Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Australian Feminist Studies, European Journal of Women’s Studies, and Women’s Studies International Forum.

Alex Martinis Roe was born in Melbourne in 1982 and lives in Berlin. Her current research projects and exhibitions explore feminist genealogies using a variety of media, including film, audio installation, performance and text. Since 2009 she has lived and worked at Kunsthaus KuLe, Berlin and recently completed a residency at Viafarini Milan. Recent exhibitions include A Story from Circolo della rosa, Archive Kabinett, Berlin (solo) (2014); Wahala, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2013), NEW13, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2013); Collective Biographies, Bibliothekswohnung, Berlin (solo) (2012); non-writing histories, Artspace, Sydney (solo) (2012); Genealogies; Frameworks for Exchange, Pallas Projects, Dublin (solo) (2011); Denkmalpflege, Heidelberger Kunstverein (2011); HaVE A LoOk! Have a Look! FormContent, London (2010).

The Salon of Aesthetic Experiments is a cooperation between the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Graduate School for the Arts of the Forum for Post Graduate Studies at Berlin University of the Arts