Fatimah Tuggar

Fatimah Tuggar is a multidisciplinary artist who uses technology as both a medium and a subject in her

work to serve as metaphors for power dynamics. She combines objects, images and sounds from diverse

cultures, geographies and histories to comment on how media and technology diversely impact local and

global realities.

Her work has been widely exhibited at international venues, in over 20 countries on five continents, including the Bamako Biennale, Mali; the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa; Museum Kunst-Palast, Dusseldorf, Germany; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; the 24th Biennial of Graphic Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Moscow Biennale, Russia; the V SalonCANTV, Jovenes, Venezuela; the Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; the Kwangju Biennale, South Korea; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Tuggar’s work has also been the subject of various panels and articles. This body of work has been integrated into academic curricula in diverse disciplines, including technology, new media, politics, cultural studies, feminism, diaspora, globalization, anthropology, sculpture, photography, and video, among others.

I grew up watching my mother partake in a women’s group. Their activities in the 70’s and 80’s paved the way for my generation to drive cars and motorcycles and operate machinery. The group was also concerned with body image. They would get creative, by folding their wrappers in half to stay in fashion with the mini and three-quarter skirts.

In boarding school in England I learned about the Suffrage Movement. Even though I had witnessed coups and military dictatorships, I found it outrageous to learn that there was a time when women couldn’t vote. While doing other readings on my own, I learned that the Scottish were the first to give women voting rights and that in 1919 New Zealand allowed women to run for elections.

While in art school in the U.S. I started to do my own research on women artists of the 60’s and 70’s. What left an impression was Womanhouse, the cooperative project that was a part of Cal Arts’ Feminist Art Program, founded by Miriam Schapiro and Judy Chicago. I also liked reading Judy Chicago’s Through the Flower. I found it to be cathartic after experiencing the overbearing, male-dominated environment of sculpture programs.

Since there are so many types of feminism and there have been debates over terms, I will explain my feminism. I do not ascribe to any particular school of thought. Yet like a radical feminist I believe that patriarchy leads to oppression of women. I also am not a liberal feminist, but I agree that political and economic equality is imperative. I will hold back from calling myself a Marxist or material feminist; instead I will say that I share a concern for the material conditions faced by many women around the world. I also do not hold an essentialist view, nor do I idealize women, for I know from personal experience women too can be cruel even to other women.

Edited except from a 2001 interview with MoMA Curator Roxana Marcoci for “Threads of Vision: Toward A New Feminine Poetic”, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art.